Durable Goods (Oct.) & GDP (Q3, 2nd Estimate)

The rise in durable goods orders last month was driven by a surge in orders for underlying capital goods, suggesting that business equipment investment is holding up better than anticipated. Together with the October advance trade data, released yesterday, we’re raising our forecast for fourth-quarter GDP growth to 1.5% annualised, from 1.0%. That would represent a modest slowdown from the upwardly revised reading of 2.1% in the third quarter.