But much of October's weakness came from an 18.4% drop in orders for defense goods. Excluding those, orders for other types of manufactured goods rose 0.4% in October, following a 1.8% rise in September.

Still, the performance was weaker than economists expected. They were forecasting orders for durable goods to grow 0.5%.

Orders for electrical equipment, commercial airplanes and parts, primary metals including steel and fabricated metals all rose last month. Orders for cars, machinery, computers and communications equipment fell.