WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. durable goods orders rose 3.8 percent in November, with a big push in transportation orders, the Commerce Department said Friday.
New orders for U.S. factories rose to $207 billion, rising for the fourth month in the past five.
Excluding the volatile and influential category of transportation, orders rose 0.3 percent. Orders with defense items excluded rose 3.7 percent.
Transportation orders rose by $7 billion or 14.7 percent to $54.4 billion after dropping by $2.4 billion in October.
Transportation is isolated from the overall data because big-ticket planes, trains, ships and trucks can quickly skew the data.
This was precisely the case in November.
U.S. plane maker Boeing said in November it had landed -- what was then its largest order ever in terms of money value -- an $18 billion Emirates Airline order for 50 planes.
