Business equipment orders are setting records again

Core capex orders (nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, the cleanest monthly read on business equipment investment) reached a record $85.4 billion in June. After the August 2022 record, the series went three years without a new high; since November 2025 it has set six.

The series is nominal, so part of any record is price rather than volume, and the three-year pause partly reflects goods deflation unwinding. What the resumption does say: businesses stopped sitting on equipment budgets. Alongside record business formation, the investment side of the economy is expanding again.