Excluding transportation, new orders fell by 4.2% in the month, following October's 5.1% decline. New orders excluding defence declined 4.7% following a 5.2% drop in October, and new orders excluding computers fell 4.8% after posting a 6.0% decrease in the prior month.

Total orders for durable goods posted a 1.5% loss in the month, following last month's massive 8.5% drop, while durable goods ex-transportation rose 0.6% following a 6.9% decrease in the prior month.

Non-defence capital goods excluding aircraft - a proxy for business investment - rose by 3.9% in the factory orders report, following a 6.7% decline in the previous month.

Defence spending rebounded 7.8% after posting a 35.4% decline in October. The index is known to be particularly volatile.

Inventories fell by 0.3% following the 0.6% decline seen in the prior month, while shipments dropped 5.3% following a previous 3.6% fall.

The inventories-to-shipments ratio moved up eight tenths to 1.41 in November.

Factory orders - the full report on manufacturers' shipments, inventories and orders - is similar to the durable goods report, but is larger in scope and includes data on non-durable goods, such as food, clothing and fuel.

Annually, the factory orders index has fallen by 12.2%. Excluding transportation, the index is down 9.1%.

By Steve Stecyk, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , edited by Stephen Huebl, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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