US factory orders unexpectedly fall in August

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for U.S.-manufactured goods unexpectedly fell in August, while business spending on equipment appears to have pulled back in the third quarter.

Factory orders dropped 0.2% after a slightly downwardly revised 4.9% increase in July, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders would be unchanged after a previously reported 5.0% rise in July.

Factory orders rose 0.3% on a year-on-year basis in August.

The government also reported that orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, which are seen as a measure of business spending plans on equipment, increased 0.3% in August instead of the previously reported 0.2%.

Shipments of core capital goods dipped 0.1% instead of edging up 0.1% as reported last month. Nondefense capital goods orders dropped 1.3%, as initially estimated.

Shipments of those goods decreased 1.8% rather than 1.6%, as initially estimated. These shipments go into the calculation of the business spending on equipment component in the gross domestic product report. That suggests a moderation in business investment in equipment in the third quarter after double-digit growth in the April-June quarter.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

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