New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $54.5 billion or 18.2 percent to $245.4 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced this week.  This decrease, following two consecutive monthly increases, followed a 22.5 percent July increase.  Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.7 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 19.0 percent.

Transportation equipment, also down following two consecutive monthly increases, drove the decrease, $55.6 billion or 42.0 percent to $76.8 billion.

The revised seasonally adjusted July figure for all manufacturing industries for new orders was $558.5 billion, revised from $558.3 billion.

To read the full release, go to http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/adv/pdf/durgd.pdf