Factory Orders Sag 0.8% in August

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- Demand for manufactured goods slumped in August, according to a report out from the Commerce Department on Friday.

New orders dropped 0.8%, or by $2.8 billion, to $352.9 billion during the month. Economists had expected a lighter 0.7% fall. The low mark breaks a four-month streak of increases that included a 1.4% uptick in new orders in July.

The big move down was led by a 42.6% drop in orders for commercial aircraft. When discounting for transportation, however, new orders would have gone higher by 0.4%.

New orders for durable goods, too, were down 2.6%, while unfilled orders fell-off by 0.4%.

On Thursday, the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index declined to 52.6%, falling well short of expectations as well.

Elsewhere, many investors were glued to the Labor Department's most recent monthly unemployment figures on Friday morning, showing that non-farm payrolls were cut by 263,000 in September. The unemployment rate, which stood at 9.7% in August, went just higher to 9.8%.

Many equities sold-off immediately after the news, though markets were showing some signs of recovery off of morning lows later.

Manufacturing players DuPont, Boeing(BA Quote) and Caterpillar, though, were still in the red by late morning, losing 0.2%, 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively.

-- Written by Sung Moss in New York

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