Factory orders tumble

<font size=5>June orders off 2.2%, below forecast, for biggest drop in 9 years</font>

August 2, 2001: 10:11 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - <font color="#FF0000">Orders to U.S. factories tumbled in June, the government reported Thursday, the latest sign of weakness in the beleaguered manufacturing sector of the world's largest economy</font>.

Factory orders fell 2.4 percent in June, the Commerce Department reported, following a revised 2.2 percent increase the month before. Analysts polled by Briefing.com expected orders to fall by 1.1 percent.

<font color="#FF0000">The drop is the largest since August 1992, Commerce said</font>.

Separately, new jobless claims fell for the third straight week last week, the Labor Department reported, hinting at a slight pickup in the U.S. job market a day ahead of the monthly employment report.

On Wall Street, stocks started higher Thursday with the Dow Jones Industrial average climbing 26.30 points to 10,537.27 shortly after 10 a.m. ET. The Nasdaq rose 9.51 points to 2,77.89.

Quelle: http://www.cnnfn.com[/b]
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/08/02/economy/economy/

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