Aviation Economic News
February 27, 2008
Durable Goods Suffer Deeper Drop Than Expected - Civilian Aircraft/Parts down 30.5%!
New orders for long-lasting U.S.-made manufactured goods fell by 5.3 percent in January, the biggest drop in five months and more than analysts expected, and a key gauge of business spending also declined, a Commerce Department report showed on Wednesday.
Nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a proxy for business investment, declined 1.4 percent, which was somewhat less than the 2.0 percent decrease Wall Street analysts were expecting.
Analysts said the report added to a glum U.S. economic picture.
"It just exacerbates the fire with respect to economic weakness going forward," said John Spinello, treasury bond strategist with Jefferies and Co. in New York.
Orders in the transportation category, which includes civilian and military aircraft, fell 13.4 percent, the largest drop since October 2006.
Excluding the volatile transportation category, the decline in durable goods orders was a more modest 1.6 percent. But excluding defense orders, durables demand fell by a much larger-than-expected 4.7 percent.
Analysts had forecast durable orders excluding transportation to decline 1.3 percent and orders excluding defense to fall 1.2 percent.
Civilian aircraft and parts suffered an overall decline of 30.5% in January.
In other economic news, new U.S. single-family home sales fell 2.8 percent in January to the lowest rate in nearly 13 years while the median sales price slipped and the housing overstock shrank, according to a government report on Wednesday that delivered more grim news for the ailing housing sector.
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