For the month of October, orders of durable goods, i. e., products meant to last several years after production, saw an unexpected 0.6% decline, after rising by as much as 2% in September. The demand for lasting commodities fell once again, reminding everyone that the recession hurt is still lingering and the economy's growth will be restrained for a while.

The figures released by the Commerce Department have confirmed the fall, which was mostly driven by the 18.4% drop in orders for defense equipment. Except for those, orders for other types of durable goods actually rose by 0.4%.

Despite the slight rise, the figure has been below the economists' expectation, who were actually expecting the orders to rise by 0.5%.

"Many firms are still hesitant to make capital investments", said Guy Lebas, Chief Fixed-income Strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia. "What we saw in the month of October was a big, big drop in machinery orders after a large increase in September".

While orders for electrical equipment, commercial airplanes and parts and primary and fabricated metals hiked during October, those for cars, machinery, computers and communication devices drastically fell.