Durable Goods Orders Up 3.3% in February

A rebound in demand for autos pushed “big-ticket” durable goods orders up 3.3% last month, the government said Friday, but the meager recovery after January’s record plunge offered little hope that manufacturing was pulling out of its slump.

The Commerce Department said orders to U.S. factories for durable goods--items expected to last more than three years--totaled a seasonally adjusted $121.6 billion.

“It simply confirms the fact that the goods-producing sector of the economy remains very sluggish,” Aubrey G. Lanston & Co. economist David Jones said of the February report.

“But the fact that the (orders) number went up shows things were not actually getting worse last month,” he said. “Therefore, there is no threat of recession on the immediate horizon.”

Weak new-car orders also pulled January’s orders lower as manufacturers cut production and offered financing incentives to help dealers reduce bloated stocks of unsold cars.

But workers were hired back in February, and auto output rose.

Orders for military tanks and ships also rose sharply in February but aircraft and parts orders fell for a second straight month.

The 10.7% January decline, revised from the originally reported 10.5%, was the biggest since the government began keeping track of such orders 32 years ago and broke the record set in the recession month of February, 1982, when orders plummeted 9.2%.