WASHINGTON — New orders for manufacturers rose 2.4% in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Excluding transportation, new orders were up 0.9%.
The July orders followed a revised decline of 0.4% in overall orders and a 0.4% rise in non-transportation orders for June.
The median estimate of economists polled by Thomson Reuters was for a 1.9% increase in total orders, based principally on earlier reports of large gains in aircraft and auto orders.