The U.S. Census Bureau said new orders for manufactured goods rose for a second consecutive month in its August 2026 Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders report, released on 2 October. Seasonally adjusted new orders reached $663.5 billion, an increase of $0.7 billion or 0.1%. July had risen 0.8%. Orders represent manufacturers’ intentions to buy for immediate or future delivery, net of cancellations. August is the reference period; 2 October is the publication date. The estimates are expressed in current dollars and are not adjusted for price changes, so their movement is not a direct measure of real output volume.

Manufacturers’ shipments were virtually unchanged in August after eight consecutive monthly increases. Their value was estimated at $658.6 billion, with the change amounting to less than $0.1 billion. Shipments had risen 0.8% in July. The shipment measure covers the value of products sold by manufacturing establishments; it is different from the stock of orders not yet filled. The report presents flow measures as activity during the month, while inventories and unfilled orders are reported as end-of-month levels. That distinction matters: orders and shipments describe flows processed over the month, whereas inventories and backlogs describe businesses’ positions at the end of the period.

Unfilled orders, the backlog of orders not yet shipped, had increased in 25 of the previous 26 months and rose another $9.9 billion, or 0.6%, to $1.6096 trillion in August. The unfilled-orders-to-shipments ratio moved from 6.81 to 6.87. Manufacturers’ inventories rose $5.1 billion, or 0.5%, to $972.4 billion, extending their monthly increase to eleven months. The inventories-to-shipments ratio edged up from 1.47 to 1.48. These ratios compare the scale of stocks with a sales flow; alone, they do not show when backlogged orders will be produced, whether orders will be cancelled, or whether inventory is excessive.

Industry components moved in different directions behind the aggregate. Seasonally adjusted orders for durable goods declined 0.1%, while nondurable-goods orders increased 0.3%. Orders for primary metals rose 1.2% and machinery rose 1.1%; fabricated metal products fell 1.4% and transportation equipment fell 0.7%. Orders excluding transportation increased 0.3%. These are estimates for different industry groups in the same month, and no single sector dictated the total direction. Monthly dollar values are not direct measures of production volume or physical units: the bulletin reports current-price estimates and does not deflate them for inflation.

The voluntary monthly M3 survey uses a panel of about 3,000 companies. Its design targets companies with annual manufacturing shipments of at least $500 million, alongside a supplemental panel of smaller firms. Because the panel is not a probability sample, the Census Bureau says it cannot calculate the amount of sampling error; coverage, response and nonresponse can also introduce other errors. Company or divisional reports supply monthly changes used to estimate movements across manufacturing establishments, and missing values may be imputed from historical company or industry trends. The new-orders estimate is derived from estimated shipments plus the change in unfilled orders. Prior months are revised for late reports and seasonal adjustment, so August should be read as a provisional monthly indicator with those limitations in mind.