Business news with words aircraft+department+prices. 2 news.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Orders for U.S.-made factory goods rose 0.2% in September on higher gasoline prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Orders for durable goods fell 1.7% on a big drop in orders for defense aircraft and other defense goods. Orders and shipments for nondurable goods rose 2.1%. The value of shipments from petroleum refiners jumped 11.2% on the month, accounting for all the gain in nondurables. Total factory orders were stronger than the 0.7% decline expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. Factory orders had fallen a revised 3.5% in August. Special one-time factors in both directions clouded the underlying trends in September. Compared with a year ago, orders were down 0.1%, while shipments were off 0.2%.

THE US trade deficit narrowed more than forecast in August as exports climbed to a record for a sixth consecutive month. The gap shrank 2.4 percent to US$57.6 billion, the smallest since January, from a revised US$59 billion in July, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. Foreign companies, benefiting from growing demand and a weaker dollar that's made American goods less expensive, have been snapping up Boeing Co aircraft and General Electric Co turbines. Rising exports will help keep the economy from falling into recession even as the housing slump persists. "The dollar is continuing to decline, which is giving a huge boost to competitiveness," Nigel Gault, chief US economist at Global Insight Inc in Lexington, Massachusetts, said before the report. Economists had forecast the deficit would narrow to US$59 billion, from a previously reported US$59.2 billion in July, according to the median of 74 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices of goods