Gross new orders of machine tools for U.S. consumption were $294.84 million in September, down 2.4% from August's $301.97 million and 20.5% below orders totaling $370.66 million in September 2004, according to data jointly released this week by AMT-The Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association. For the first nine months of 2005, however, orders totaling $2.28 billion ran 10.2% ahead of orders of $2.07 billion during the first nine months of 2004.
In September, the most recent month for which data are available, orders for metal-cutting machine tools were $271.39 million, down eight-tenths of a percentage point from August's $273.59 million. Orders of metal-forming machine tools for U.S. consumption were $23.45 million in September, 17.4% below $28.39 million in orders in August.
