WASHINGTON - New orders for manufactured durable goods fell $8.6 billion or 4.0% to $206.1 billion in January, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
The drop came after an upwardly revised 3.2% increase in December and was the largest drop since January 2009, when new orders plummeted 13.2%.
Excluding transportation, new orders fell 3.2% and excluding defense, they dropped 4.5%.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had projected a median 1.0% decrease in new orders for durable goods. They had estimated that durable goods excluding transportation would remain unchanged from December to January.
Durable goods shipments, up two consecutive months, edged up $800 million or 0.4% to $207.8 billion in January, following a revised 1.9% decrease in December, originally reported as a 2.1% gain.
Unfilled orders for durable goods, up 21 of the last 22 months, rose $4.8 billion or 0.5% to $917.1 billion, following an unrevised 1.5% gain in December.
Inventories, up 25 consecutive months, increased $2.6 billion or 0.7% to $372.5 billion, the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992. The gain, the highest since August 2011 when inventories were up 0.9%, followed an unrevised 0.3% increase in December.
