Durable goods orders jump 1.8% to $345.4 billion, but aircraft did most of it: core equipment rose 0.5%

New orders for U.S. durable goods rose 1.8% in September to $345.4 billion, up $6.3 billion, the Census Bureau reported at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday. August was revised to a 0.1% gain. Shipments rose 0.9% to $336.8 billion.

The headline looks strong. The detail is more modest: take out transportation and orders rose 0.5%, a gain of about $1.0 billion on a $224.5 billion base.

The number behind the number: aircraft

Orders for nondefense aircraft and parts jumped 28.4% to $25.3 billion, from $19.7 billion in August. That $5.6 billion increase is about 89% of the entire $6.3 billion rise in total durable orders (our calculation from Table 1). Transportation equipment as a whole rose $5.2 billion, or 4.6%, to $119.8 billion. Motor vehicles and parts orders were nearly flat, up 0.3%.

Aircraft orders are lumpy. A handful of large airline orders can move the monthly total by billions of dollars, which is why economists strip them out.

Core equipment orders slow

Nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, the series used as a proxy for business investment, rose 0.5% to $88.0 billion. In August it rose 1.6%. Shipments of the same category increased 1.2% to $86.1 billion, so orders still ran about $2.0 billion ahead of deliveries, a sign the pipeline is not draining.

Total nondefense capital goods orders, aircraft included, rose 6.2% to $107.8 billion. That number will be quoted widely and says little about equipment demand for the same reason.

Orders for defense capital goods fell 1.8% to $20.8 billion. Excluding defense, total durable orders rose 2.2%.

Who it hits

• Machine shops and equipment dealers: machinery orders rose 1.2% to $46.0 billion, after a 1.0% rise in August.
• Fabricators: fabricated metal products orders rose 0.4% to $45.2 billion, after falling 1.4% in August. Primary metals orders rose 0.5% to $33.0 billion.
• Telecom suppliers: communications equipment orders fell 1.3% to $5.1 billion, the second straight decline.

Unfilled orders rose 0.8% to $1,623.6 billion, up in 26 of the last 27 months. Inventories rose 0.3% to $610.0 billion, the twelfth straight gain.

What the obvious read gets wrong, and what we could not confirm

A 1.8% gain reads like a factory sector accelerating. Without aircraft it is a slow month, and the one measure tied directly to business spending decelerated. Census figures are in current dollars, so some of any gain can be price, and the agency says the survey is not a probability sample, so it cannot measure the sampling error.

Outlets framed the result differently: Nasdaq's headline said orders jumped more than expected, while Investing.com's said they missed forecasts. We could not retrieve either consensus figure, so we are not calling this a beat or a miss.

Why it lands now

The report comes a day before the Fed's decision on Wednesday, where the economic calendar shows a forecast for the funds target of 3.875%. The 10-year Treasury yield was 5.00% and the 2-year 4.69% on our market page this morning. Sturdy equipment orders at those yields are one more sign business investment is holding up despite the cost of capital. The next report is due Nov. 25.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau advance durable goods report for September 2026 (Table 1); Nasdaq; Investing.com. Differences and shares are Chronicle calculations from Census tables. Figures are advance estimates and subject to revision. This is market information, not investment advice.