US durable goods orders rise 3.4% in April, buoyed by aircraft sales

New orders for US-made durable goods rose 3.4% month-on-month in April, the Department of Commerce said, following on from a 1.9% gain in March. Core durables, which exclude transportation, rose 0.4%, against a 0.1% gain in March.

Government statisticians estimated orders rose $7.7bn to $235.9bn, helped by a near 65% surge in new orders for commercial aircraft to reach $16.87bn.

Transportation equipment, which included commercial aircraft, progressed $7.1bn, or 8.9%, to $87.1bn.

Orders for motor vehicles and parts increased 2.9% over the month to $55.96bn and those for computers and those for fabricated metal products by 3.1% to $30.03bn.

Shipments of manufactured durable goods in April advanced $1.5bn, or 0.6%, to $232.5bn, following on from a 0.8% fall in March.

Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods firmed $6.3bn, or 0.6%, to $1,137.0bn, having been virtually unmoved in March.

Inventories of manufactured durable goods slipped $0.7bn, or 0.2%, to $384.4bn, from a dip of 0.2% in March.

So-called 'core' capital goods orders, a widely-tracked lead indicator for investment trends which excludes orders from the defence sector and those for aircraft, fell 0.8% over the month to $62.35bn (consensus: 0.3%) and were 4.1% down on a year ago.

"On balance, this morning’s report from the Census Bureau confirms that factory demand remained soft through Q1 and has yet to rebound. We do not expect to see a near-term turn around in the US manufacturing sector," Barclays´s Jesse Hurwitz said in a research report sent to clients.

Hurwitz trimmed his tracking estimate for second quarter GDP growth Stateside by one tenth of a percentage point to 2.5%.