The Commerce Department's Friday report revealed that new orders for U.S. manufactured goods experienced a significant decline in June.
Factory orders fell by 3.3 percent in June, following a 0.5 percent decrease in May. This drop surpassed economists' predictions, who had anticipated a 2.9 percent decrease.
A substantial contributor to the decline was a sharp 6.7 percent fall in orders for durable goods, driven by a staggering 29.6 percent drop in orders for transportation equipment. Orders for non-durable goods also saw a slight decrease, down by 0.1 percent.
In contrast, shipments of manufactured goods increased by 0.5 percent in June, recovering from a 0.7 percent decline in May, according to the Commerce Department.
The report additionally noted that inventories of manufactured goods saw a minor decrease in June, following a 0.1 percent increase in May.
As shipments rose and inventories declined, the inventories-to-shipments ratio fell slightly to 1.46 in June from 1.47 in May.
