Orders for manufactured US durable goods sank 7.8 percent in January, as orders for transportation equipment fell heavily, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
The sharp drop was more than double what most Wall Street analysts had forecast and suggested further weakness in the US industrial sector.
Most analysts had forecast that orders for big-ticket manufactured goods, including cars, aircraft and washing machines, would fall around 3.0 percent.
The fall in orders was the sharpest since October of last year.
December's durable goods orders were revised a shade lower to 2.8 percent from a prior estimate of 2.9 percent, the government said.
Excluding the transport sector, orders fell 3.1 percent in January following a spike of 2.6 percent in December.
And orders fell a hefty 7.8 percent excluding the defense sector, marking the segment's biggest drop ever, after notching up a 4.0 percent gain in December.
