Orders Fall for U.S. Durable Products

New orders placed with U.S. factories for goods designed to last three years or more fell 6% in January, a decline more than twice what private economists had projected and another sign that the factory sector continues weak.

That is bad news for trucking operations that haul the freight produced at those factories, since weakness in new orders last month means fewer goods are being built to be shipped.

That can affect not only trucking operations for the finished goods — which range from less-than-truckload ship-ments to trucks that haul new vehicles from assembly plants to dealership — but it can also hurt trucks hauling industrial inputs such as steel.

The Commerce Department said the 6% drop brought durable goods orders to a seasonally adjusted level of $202 billion, the lowest since June 1999. Commerce also revised its December figures downward, to a 1.2% gain from an earlier reported 2.1% increase.

The January decline included a big drop in high-value civilian aircraft orders, but the electronics category also fell. Not counting orders for the defense establishment or aircraft, overall durable orders still fell 6%.

However, capital goods orders outside of aircraft and defense rose 6.5% as businesses ordered industrial machinery and equipment including office computers.

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