FX.co ★ U.S. Factory Orders Pull Back Slightly More Than Expected In November

The Commerce Department released a report on Monday indicating that new orders for U.S. manufactured goods experienced a slightly larger decline than anticipated in November. Specifically, factory orders decreased by 0.4 percent following a revised increase of 0.5 percent in October.

Economists had predicted a modest decrease of 0.3 percent for factory orders, in contrast to the initially reported 0.2 percent rise last month. The drop in factory orders was primarily due to a significant 1.2 percent decrease in orders for durable goods, which outweighed the 0.4 percent growth in non-durable goods orders.

Conversely, the report noted a marginal 0.1 percent increase in the shipment of manufactured goods in November, recovering slightly from a 0.2 percent decline in October. Additionally, inventories for manufactured goods saw a 0.3 percent uptick, reversing a 0.1 percent reduction the previous month.

As inventories climbed faster than shipments, the inventories-to-shipments ratio increased to 1.47 in November, up from 1.46 in October.