US manufactured goods orders post surprise rise
Orders of big-ticket manufactured items continued to defy expectations to rise again in May, fueled by a sharp jump in orders for transportation equipment, according to US government data released Tuesday.
The figures underline the continued strength of some sectors of the American economy despite hikes in interest rates from the US Federal Reserve as it moves to tackle high inflation.
Manufactured durable goods orders rose by 1.7 percent in May from a month earlier to $288.2 billion, the Commerce Department announced in a statement.
The increase was well above the median expectation of a fall in orders in a MarketWatch survey of economists.
"Durable goods orders have come in far stronger than implied by leading indicators and the survey data for three straight months now, making it hard to explain away the disconnect simply as noise," Pantheon Macronomics senior US economist Kieran Clancy wrote in a note to clients.
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