costly manufactured products expected to last at least three years, including appliances and automobiles. The Census Bureau of the U.S. Commerce Department keeps track of them. The bureau tracks the dollar value of new orders. Separately, it also tracks shipments, unfilled orders, and inventories. Orders for durable goods can help forecast future manufacturing activity, although the overall number needs to be used with care because it can be strongly influenced by large orders in a particular sector, such as defense spending. For more information, two Web sites are helpful: www.census.gov/ ftp/pub/ and indicator/www/m3/index.htm and biz.yahoo.com/c/ terms/durord.html.
goods that have a useful life of more than three years. Orders for durable goods, which are tracked by the Commerce Department on a monthly basis, indicate the extent to which businesses and manufacturers are willing to invest capital for future needs Several months of increases in durable goods orders are a sign of a strong economy, and vice versa. The term hard goods is sometimes used synonymously, but more properly refers to durable consumer goods, such as appliances, as opposed to soft goods, which are consumer nondurables, such as textiles. The official economic opposite of durable goods is nondurable goods, which includes food, fuel, cosmetics, drugs, clothing, and services.
long-lasting merchandise such as televisions, appliances, hardware, furniture, or recording equipment; also called hard goods.
