U.S. business investment showed fresh strength in August as orders for key capital goods rose more than expected, reinforcing the picture of a resilient economy despite high borrowing costs and rising long-term Treasury yields.
The Commerce Department reported that non-defense capital-goods orders excluding aircraft, a widely followed proxy for business equipment spending, increased 1.6% in August. July’s increase was revised up to 0.6%, according to Reuters reporting carried by Investing.com.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.5% increase in the core measure. Shipments of core capital goods, which feed into the equipment component of gross domestic product, rose 0.6% after a 1.4% gain in July.
The headline durable-goods figure was less dramatic, with overall orders unchanged at 0.0%. ForexLive noted that this was better than expectations for a 0.4% decline, while orders excluding transportation rose 0.3%.
The data suggest that artificial-intelligence infrastructure spending continues to support parts of U.S. manufacturing and capital expenditure. For currency markets, resilient investment can reinforce expectations that the Federal Reserve has room to keep policy restrictive, making subsequent inflation and rate data especially important for EUR/USD and other dollar pairs.