March Durable Goods Orders Up 6.72%

Orders to U.S. factories for durable goods jumped 6.7% in March, the sharpest increase in more than a year, the government said today.

The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods--”big-ticket” items expected to last at least three years--totaled a seasonally adjusted $128.8 billion in March after a 2.3% upward bounce in February.

It was the largest increase in orders since a 7.4% gain in December, 1988. And it continued for a second month the rebound from January’s 10.5% decline, the steepest drop ever recorded.

The department said most of the boost was caused by increased orders for transportation equipment, saying that excluding transportation, the advance was only 2%.

“The increase in transportation equipment in March of . . . 21% to $36.2 billion was mostly attributable to aircraft and parts, although motor vehicles and parts also had a significant increase,” it said.

The gain in transportation orders was the sharpest since a 22.1% advance in December, 1988.

The closely watched non-defense capital goods sector, often a barometer of business investment plans, jumped 14.9% to $41.4 billion after diving 6.1% in February.

Sharp drops in airplane and automobile orders were responsible for the record decline in January, the department reported.

Aircraft orders continued to slide in February, but a resumption in auto building helped pushed total orders up. The department counts car orders and production as the same.

The auto industry had laid off more than 90,000 workers during January to ease bloated inventories. Most of those workers returned to production lines in February.