Orders for Cars, Refrigerators, Other Durable Goods Drops Steeply In Jan.

Orders for durable goods -- big-ticket items such as cars, appliances, computers, machinery and so forth -- dropped 5.2 percent in January, a bigger dip than was expected.

The monthly survey of durable goods, released moments ago by the Commerce Department, reflects orders to manufacturers from retailers and is a gauge of consumer demand. In this case, seriously sagging consumer demand.

Analysts had expected a drop of only 2.5 percent.

Breaking out the data, orders for autos dropped 6.4 percent.

Orders for computers and related products dropped a whopping 16 percent.

Orders for household appliances dropped 6.1 percent.

-- Frank Ahrens
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