New orders for manufactured goods decreased 1.2% in June to $406.4 billion. Shipments declined 0.8% to $411.2 billion. Unfilled orders declined slightly to $802.8 billion, and inventories decreased 0.1% to $520.0 billion.
Construction spending was $836.0 billion in June 2010, 0.1% above May but 7.9% below the June 2009 level.
New orders for manufactured durable goods in June 2010 fell 1.0%, to $190.5 billion. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.6%. While overall shipments decreased 0.3%, capital goods shipments rose 0.6%. Inventories rose 0.9% in June.
Building permits in June 2010 were 586,000, an increase of 2.1% from May and 2.3% below the June 2009 estimate. Housing starts declined 5.0% from the prior month, to 549,000. This was 5.8% below the June 2009 level.
Business inventories were up 0.1% in May 2010 from April but were down 1.5% from their level in May 2009. Sales were down 0.9% in May 2010 from the prior month but were up 11.8% from their level a year ago.
