U.S. orders for durable goods fall 5.3% in January

WASHINGTON – Manufacturers’ orders for durable goods such as cars and washing machines fell a seasonally adjusted $12.0 billion or 5.3 percent last month to $212.8 billion, ending a two-month rise, according to the advance report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Manufacturing and Construction Division.
The January decline – which followed a revised 4.4-percent increase in December that was smaller than initially reported – exceeded analysts’ expectations, according to Bloomberg News, whose survey of 72 economists forecast a decline of 4.0 percent. (Their individual predictions called for declines of 0.5 percent to 7.0 percent.)
Orders excluding airplanes and other transportation equipment fell 1.6 percent last month, the Census Bureau said, while orders excluding defense fell 4.7 percent.
Among capital goods, non-defense new orders plunged $6.6 billion or 8.1 percent from their December level to $74.6 billion. New defense orders fell $2.3 billion or 19.9 percent to a January level of $9.3 billion.
“Capital spending is going to slow and is probably going to decline a little bit in the first half [of 2008],” Nigel Gault, director of U.S. research at forecasting firm Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg News. “If businesses see their markets and profits growing more slowly, they are going to be more cautious about spending.”
Additional information, including the Advance Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders (M3), is available from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of the Census, Manufacturing and Construction Division, at www.census.gov/m3.