US companies' borrowing to spend on capital investment was unchanged in October, the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) said. Companies signed up for $7.6 billion in new loans, leases and lines of credit last month, unchanged from a year earlier. Their borrowing fell 1 percent from September.
"We remain cautiously optimistic that business demand for capital equipment will continue unabated into the fourth quarter, which is a typically strong period for the industry," ELFA Chief Executive William Sutton said in a statement. Washington-based ELFA, a trade association that reports economic activity for the $827 billion equipment finance sector, said credit approvals totalled 77.6 percent in October, up slightly from 77.3 percent in September. ELFA's leasing and finance index measures the volume of commercial equipment financed in the United States. It is designed to complement the US Commerce Department's durable goods orders report, which it typically precedes by a few days.