Orders to U.S. factories for manufactured goods, from computers to aircraft, surged in May for a second straight month, and a gauge of business investment rose by the most in nearly five years.
Together, Wednesday’s data signal that the recession could be at or near a bottom.
Yet new-home sales fell unexpectedly last month. It was a reminder that any recovery in the housing market will be long and slow.
The Commerce Department said demand for durable goods rose 1.8 percent last month, far better than the 0.6 percent decline that economists expected.
It matched the rise in April, with both months posting the best performance since December 2007.
Orders for non-defense capital goods, a proxy for business investment plans, jumped 4.8 percent, the biggest increase since September 2004.
The back-to-back monthly gains in orders for durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, were further evidence that a dismal stretch for U.S. manufacturers may be nearing an end. But analysts say any sustained rebound is months away.
And new-home sales dropped 0.6 percent in May, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, from a downwardly revised April rate of 344,000. Sales were down nearly 33 percent from May last year.
The median sales price, $221,600, was down 3.4 percent from a year earlier but up 4.2 percent from April.
