Durable goods orders fell sharply in January. Dean Baker of CEPR pointed this out in his blog today.  New orders for durable goods fell by an amazing 4.0% in January.  This was a broadly based decline, ranging from -19.0% for nondefense aircraft and parts to -1.9% for e0lectrical equipment, appliances, and components.  The only significant bright spot was defense capital goods which rose 17.7%.

As a service to readers, click here to download an Excel workbook with the raw data.  I have created an additional worksheet that contains only the new orders data.  (The original Census data combines shipments and new orders on a single worksheet, making the analysis of only new orders difficult.)

Thanks, Dean.