New data show that U.S. durable goods orders excluding transportation held steady in July 2026, matching the previous month’s pace and pointing to a stable underlying trend in business investment and manufacturing demand.
According to the latest update on 2 September 2026, core durable goods orders rose 0.4% month-over-month in July, identical to the revised 0.4% gain recorded in June 2026. On a month-over-month comparison basis, this indicates that the rate of growth in orders for longer-lasting manufactured goods—excluding the often-volatile transportation category—remained unchanged, rather than accelerating or slowing.
The back-to-back 0.4% increases suggest that U.S. manufacturers are seeing a consistent flow of demand heading into the second half of the year, with no evident deterioration from June to July at the core level. Investors and policymakers typically monitor this measure to gauge the health of capital spending and the broader industrial sector, and July’s data point to a manufacturing environment that is steady rather than cyclical or sharply weakening.
