NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Demand for durable goods made in U.S. factories dipped in August, the government said Thursday, as the manufacturing sector came back to earth after soaring in July.

The Commerce Department reported that orders for goods made to last three years or longer, such as cars and computers, fell 0.6 percent in August to $178.4 billion after rising a revised 8.6 percent in July. Economists expected durable goods orders to fall 3.4 percent, according to Briefing.com.

"The much stronger-than-expected durable goods number is significant because it comes on the heels of a sizable gain the previous month," said Anthony Chan, chief economist at Banc One Investment Advisors.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 406,000 in the week ended Sept. 21 from a revised 430,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 420,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.

Together, the reports helped lift U.S. stock prices, while Treasury bond prices fell.

In a sign of strength in private-sector demand for durable goods, new orders excluding defense goods rose 0.6 percent to $169.9 billion, after rising 7 percent in July.

Excluding transportation products such as cars and airplanes, durable-goods orders fell 0.9 percent to $121 billion after rising 3.1 percent in July.

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The U.S. manufacturing sector suffered through an 18-month-long recession that began in 2000, when businesses abruptly stopped spending on capital improvements. That slowdown led to more than a million job cuts and a recession in the broader economy that began in March 2001.

In response, the Federal Reserve cut its target for short-term interest rates 11 times in 2001 to encourage borrowing and boost consumer spending, which makes up about two-thirds of the total economy. The Fed has left rates alone so far this year, waiting for signs that the economy is recovering or weakening again.

While consumers have been willing to spend money on big-ticket items such as cars and houses, business spending is likely the key to the economy's future health, since increased spending will lead to more production, investment and hiring.

Encouragingly, non-defense capital goods, a measure of how businesses are spending, rose 5.9 percent in August to $60.5 billion after rising 12.5 percent in July.

"Everyone knows that consumers cannot carry the economy indefinitely on their own, and this report provides some hope that the long-awaited capital spending recovery may not be too far off," Chan said.