U.S. August factory orders surprised on the upside this morning, holding flat at relatively robust July levels.

Durables goods orders, which had already been reported last week, were revised up to show a more modest fall in August while non-durable goods orders, the new source of information in this report, rose 0.5% following a 0.2% decline in July.

“The important news in this report and last week’s durables goods reports centers around capital goods orders. An up-trend has emerged for such orders and with economy wide profits on the rise once again it’s only a matter of time before these orders translate into the long awaited turnaround in business investment,” said RBC Financial Group economists in their news release.

Also, it was reported that the non-manufacturing ISM index rose to 53.9 in September from 50.8 in August. “The service sector certainly appears to be weathering the stagnate state of the U.S. economy much better than the goods producing sector,” observes RBC. “This fact has been evident in the labour market where job losses have been heavy in the manufacturing sector, a trend which is likely to remain in evidence in tomorrow’s labour market report.”