The sluggish manufacturing sector is showing signs of emerging from a recent slump even though overall new factory orders fell 0.1% in April, according to analysts. Many economists had estimated a drop of nearly 1%.

Factory orders fell slightly because reduced demand for aircraft and defense goods offset moderate gains in other sectors, the Commerce Department reported. The April decline followed a revised 1.7% increase in March, previously reported as a 1.5% gain.

Analysts had predicted a greater decline in April after the Commerce Department announced last week that durable-goods orders, such as for major appliances and automobiles, fell 1.9% in April. …

Alan Helfman has no doubts about the strength of the economy. He owns Ford and Chrysler dealerships in the affluent Houston suburb of River Oaks, Texas, and is selling vans, Jeeps and Ford Explorers like "gangbusters."

"We’re hot as fire down here," he drawls. "It’s not the best it’s ever been, but it’s pretty dang close."

Defying predictions, American consumers continue to open their wallets — and fuel economic growth. Economists say businesses let their inventories dwindle early this year and then were surprised by consumers’ resilience. But now, as they rush to restock their shelves, economic growth could pick up in …

WASHINGTON — New orders for durable goods fell 0.8% in June, the Commerce Department said, signaling that the economy’s strength isn’t unbridled.

June’s decline partially unraveled the huge 4.2% jump in May orders. That gain was just one piece of economic data in the robustly healthy second quarter that caused financial markets to wonder if the economy was in danger of overheating.

But June’s report helped temper that fear a bit. Treasurys ended modestly higher Thursday, with the bellwether 30-year bond rising nearly 3/8 to yield 7.01%.

More than half of the June decline in orders for durable goods, or big-ticket items such …

WASHINGTON — In another forecast of continued economic growth, the index of leading economic indicators rose a strong 0.5% in June, the Conference Board said.

The index’s rise was its fifth in a row, including a 0.3% gain in April and a 0.2% gain in May. Three consecutive increases usually signal that the economy is expanding.

"The economy is on the move again, but the speed of the expansion is uncertain," said Robert Dederick, chief economist at Northern Trust Co. in Chicago.

The index of leading indicators is intended to predict economic activity six to nine months ahead, but many economists say it …

Despite surging second-quarter economic growth and tight labor markets, wholesale prices remained unchanged last month, the Labor Department said.

The stable prices at the producer level offer a further sign that inflation is under control, analysts said. Bonds were up sharply on the news Friday, with the Treasury Department’s benchmark 30-year issue closing Friday at 100 23/32, up 23/32 point.

"It just doesn’t get much better than this," with declining inflation and strong real growth, said Chris Varvares, a forecaster at Macroeconomic Advisers L.L.C. in St. Louis. The producer price index, which tracks price fluctuations at the producer level, and the consumer …

Over 71% of workers whose jobs were eliminated in the past three years found new ones by February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

From January 1993 to December 1995, an estimated 8.4 million workers were displaced from their jobs, including 3.8 million long-term workers who had held their jobs for at least three years, the bureau said. Displaced workers are defined as people 20 years or older who have lost their jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, their positions or shifts were eliminated or there was insufficient work for them to do.

Of those 8.4 million …