Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods posted a modest increase in December, but the gain was not enough to prevent orders from plunging by a record amount for the entire year.
The Commerce Department reported today that orders for durable goods edged up a slight 0.3 percent last month, a much weaker showing than the 2 percent advance economists had been expecting.
For all of 2009, durable goods orders plunged by 20.2 percent, the largest drop on records that go back to 1992. The decline highlighted the battering that U.S. manufacturers have suffered during the recession.
The 20.2 percent orders decline last year followed a 5.8 percent drop in 2008, the first back-to-back annual declines since 2001 and 2002, a period when the country was also dealing with a recession.