US October Durable Goods Orders Surge 5.3%, Driven by Strong Demand for Civilian Aircraft

By AI Insights

2026-02-04

According to the latest DataTrack data, US October Durable Goods Orders recorded a month-over-month increase of 5.3%, not only strongly reversing the revised -2.2% decline in September but also marking the largest monthly increase in recent times. This figure significantly exceeded market consensus expectations (approximately 3.2%), showing that the manufacturing demand side experienced a sharp rebound after a brief pullback in the previous month, with the main momentum coming from the contribution of large-ticket transportation orders.

Breaking down the details, the core driver of this surge came from the highly volatile "transportation equipment" category. Market data shows that this category saw a monthly increase of 14.7%, with civilian aircraft orders showing astounding growth of nearly 98%, masking the moderate performance of other items. It is worth noting that "core capital goods orders (non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft)," which serves as a bellwether for corporate capital expenditure, also saw a monthly increase rate of 0.7%, better than the expected 0.3%, reflecting that the investment willingness of the real economy has not cooled as rapidly as the market feared.

Institutional analysis points out that durable goods data inherently possesses high volatility characteristics. The 5.3% reading this month largely reflects the timing of order bookings from aerospace giants like Boeing, representing a short-term disturbance rather than a comprehensive reversal of long-term trends. Although the headline figure is impressive, analysts generally believe that focus should be placed on the steady growth excluding transportation. This indicates that before the interest rate environment has fully loosened, the manufacturing sector still retains a certain degree of resilience and has not experienced a cliff-like drop.

Looking ahead, in the short term (1-2 months), high vigilance is needed regarding the risk of "mean reversion" in the data. Due to the extreme instability of aerospace orders, next month's data is very likely to experience a significant pullback or fluctuation due to the high base effect. In the medium term (3-6 months), the key lies in whether core capital goods orders can maintain continuous expansion, and whether the lagging effects of Fed policy on corporate financing costs begin to blunt. This will be a leading indicator for judging whether US manufacturing can truly emerge from the trough in early 2026.

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