Census Bureau, is one of the most closely watched gauges of U.S. manufacturing activity and business investment. Released about 18 working days after each reference month at 8:30 a.m. ET, it covers new orders, shipments, unfilled orders, and inventories of products meant to last three or more years — from aircraft, vehicles, and machinery to computers and appliances. A more comprehensive Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders (M3) release follows roughly a week later. Headline durable goods orders are notoriously volatile, swinging on lumpy aircraft and defense bookings, so analysts focus on two cleaner cuts: new orders excluding transportation, which strips out Boeing-driven swings, and nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft — the so-called “core capex” series — which is treated as a real-time proxy for business investment intentions and feeds into GDP estimates.
The February 2026 advance report, released April 7 (rescheduled from its original March 25 slot), showed headline durable goods orders fell 1.4% to $315.5 billion, the fourth decline in five months, after a 0.5% drop in January. Transportation equipment drove the weakness, sliding 5.4% to $106.1 billion as nondefense aircraft orders pulled back sharply. Excluding transportation, however, new orders rose 0.8%, suggesting underlying demand was firmer than the headline implied. Excluding defense, orders fell 1.2%.
The capex picture was weaker. Nondefense new orders for capital goods plunged 7.4% to $92.9 billion, with related shipments — the input that feeds GDP — down 0.5%. Shipments of total durable goods rose 1.3% to $319.2 billion, and unfilled orders edged up 0.1% to $1.54 trillion, with machinery backlogs extending a seven-month winning streak
