January Durable Goods Orders Fall

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rders for durable goods in the United States fell 0.9% in January on reduced aircraft and automobile orders, the first decline in three months, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

The decrease to $200.4 billion follows a 1.4% rise in December, Commerce said. Excluding transportation equipment, orders rose 0.8% after a 2.8% rise in December.

Analysts had expected durable orders to be unchanged and excluding transportation to rise 0.3%, Bloomberg reported.

Durable orders, which are goods made to last at least three years, are often looked to as an indicator of future factory activity. Factory activity drives demand for transportation services, particularly trucking, which hauls finished products and components to and from production plants.

Commerce said orders for transportation equipment fell 5.3% after declining 2.2% in December. Bookings for commercial aircraft fell 27% after falling 16.7% in December.

The report said orders for computers and related products rose 13%, the biggest increase ever. Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for future business investment, rose 2.9% after rising 3.3% in December.

Shipments, which the government uses to calculate quarterly gross domestic product, rose 3.7% after rising 2.9%, Commerce said.