Goods Orders, Home Sales Dip in August
The muted nature of the economic recovery was underscored yesterday by reports that new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods such as cars, refrigerators, steel and machine tools fell 3.8 percent last month, while sales of existing homes dipped 2.1 percent.</br></br>The drop in new orders for durable goods, however, was smaller than most analysts had expected, following an increase in July that was the largest in history.</br></br>Moreover, the July gain, originally put at 11.2 percent, was revised upward in yesterdayÛªs report from the Commerce Department to 11.7 percent.</br></br>Gordon Richards, an economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, called the August drop in orders essentially a one-month aberration.</br></br>orders figures needed to be averaged over several months to see the trend, which is still upward, the August dip notwithstanding.