After reporting notable decreases in new orders for U.S. manufactured goods in the two previous months, the Commerce Department released a report on Wednesday showing that factory orders rebounded by more than expected in the month of February.
The report said factory orders increased by 1.6 percent in February after falling by a revised 1.0 percent in January and tumbling by 2.0 percent in December.
Economists had expected orders to rise by about 1.2 percent compared to the 0.7 percent drop originally reported for the previous month.
The bigger than expected increase in factory orders was partly due to a significant rebound in orders for transportation equipment.
The Commerce Department said orders for transportation equipment surged up by 7.0 percent in February following a 6.2 percent drop in January.
However, excluding the jump in orders for transportation equipment, factory orders still rose by 0.7 percent in February after edging down by 0.1 percent in each of the two previous months.
The report showed that durable goods orders surged up by 2.2 percent in February, unchanged from the previously reported increase. Orders for non-durable goods also increased by 1.0 percent.
The Commerce Department also said shipments of manufactured goods rose by 0.9 percent in February after falling by 0.7 percent in January.
Additionally, inventories of manufactured goods increased by 0.7 percent in February after edging up by 0.2 percent in the previous month.
With inventories and shipments both rising, the inventories-to-shipments ratio was unchanged from the previous month at 1.30.
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