Ahead of the Bell: Durable goods to fall

WASHINGTON - Government data due out Friday is expected to show that demand for costly manufactured goods fell in June, another sign of the economy's weakness. The Commerce Department's report on orders placed at U.S. factories for big-ticket goods, such as cars, appliances and machinery, will drop by 0.4 percent in June from the previous month, according to the consensus estimate of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR. The data will be released at 8:30 a.m. EDT. If that estimate proves correct, it would mark a deterioration from May, when orders for such "durable" goods--expected to last at least three years--were flat. Removing bookings for transportation equipment, which can swing widely from month to month, orders for all other manufactured goods are expected to dip by 0.2 percent in June. The Federal Reserve,... [read full story]