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Numbers: U.S. factory orders fell a sharp 3.6% in January due to a decline in contracts for Boeing jetliners, but there were few signs of a broader recovery among manufacturers.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected a 3.1% decline.
Excluding transportation, orders for manufactured goods fell by 0.8%.
Big picture: Manufacturing has struggled to achieve solid growth in recent years due to changing consumer spending habits and rising interest rates orchestrated by the Federal Reserve to curb inflation.
The Biden administration's generous subsidies and incentives have gone some way to supporting industrial spending, but if the Fed cuts rates as expected, manufacturing could receive a tailwind later this year.
Lower borrowing costs could lead to increased business investment.
Main details: Companies are investing heavily in new computing power derived from Bide grants and in the budding artificial intelligence revolution. Expenditures have increased significantly compared to the previous year.
However, all other major areas of the industrial sector are very weak.
Core capital goods orders, a measure of broad business investment, were flat in January. These orders decreased by 0.6% in the previous month and decreased slightly compared to the same month last year.
Shipments of already produced industrial goods fell by almost 1%, falling in four of the past five months.
These numbers are factored into the gross domestic product report, the official scorecard for the U.S. economy, and suggest first-quarter gross domestic product may not receive much help from business investment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA and S&P 500 SPX fell in Tuesday trading.
