The Commerce Department reported factory orders increased 1.2% in August to $515.7B, and follows an upwardly revised 0.7% (vs previously reported 0.4%) for July. The report marks four consecutive months of factory order increases. Factory orders are up 18.0% year-over-year. Strong demand for goods as well as businesses restocking their inventories is fueling orders. Orders for durable goods reported up 1.8% to $263.6B, and follows a 0.5% increase in July. Most of the increase in durable goods was driven by transportation which was up 5.4% to $80.7B. Orders for non-durable goods advanced 0.6% percent to $252.1B. Shipments of manufactured goods increased 0.1 percent or $0.3 billion to $508.3B and follows a $1.5B increase in July. Inventories at factories rose 0.6% in August mirroring July’s gain. Unfilled orders at factories increased 1.0% after rising 0.5% in July. Orders for core capital goods grew 0.6% while shipments of core capital goods rose 0.8% in August.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that US commercial crude oil stockpiles increased by 2.3M barrels to 420.9M barrels (7% below the five-year average) for the week ending October 1st. Crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.7M barrels per day, an increase of 330K barrels per day as compared to the previous week’s average. Gasoline inventories increased by 3.3M barrels (1% below the five-year average,) while distillate inventories fell by 0.4M barrels (11% below the five-year average). Refineries operated at 89.6% of their operable capacity, as gasoline production decreased an average of 9.4M barrels per day. Crude oil imports came in at 7.0M barrels per day, a decrease of 0.5M barrels per day as compared to the previous week. Crude oil imports averaged about 6.5M barrels per day over the last four weeks, 22.7% more than the same period last year. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 0.8M barrels last week.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a weaker than expected 194,000 jobs were added in September and follows an upwardly revised August jobs figure of 366,000 from 235,000. Impacting the headline number was a 123,000 decline in government payrolls, while private payrolls increased by 317,000. The unemployment rate dropped to a post-pandemic low of 4.8%, down 0.4% from August. Leisure and hospitality added 74,000 jobs, followed by business services (+60,000), retail, (+56,000), and transportation and warehousing (+47,000). Local government education dropped 144,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings increased by 0.6% to $30.85 in September. The number of unemployed fell by 710,000 to 7.7M, down from 23.1M in April 2020, but still well above February 2020’s 5.8M. The labor force participation rate or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one was little changed at 61.6%.