US durable goods orders fall

US economic data on Wednesday were mixed. Reuters reports:

New orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell unexpectedly for a second straight month in June, posting the largest drop since August in a sign economic recovery cooled in the second quarter.

However, the Commerce Department report on Wednesday showed cash-flush businesses continued to invest in equipment. That implied underlying demand remained intact with firms exhibiting confidence in the moderate economic recovery...

Durable goods orders dropped 1.0 percent after falling 0.8 percent in May, surprising financial markets that had expected a 1.0 percent increase. Durable goods include big-ticket items such as cars and planes.

But orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for business spending, unexpectedly rose 0.6 percent after increasing by an upwardly revised 4.6 percent in May. Markets had expected a flat reading...

A separate report from the Federal Reserve showed U.S. economic activity was still rising but at a subdued rate...

The Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday that demand for loans to buy homes rose for the second straight week last week to the highest level since the end of June, but hovered just above 13-year lows.

Meanwhile, the euro area continues to face tight lending conditions. From Bloomberg on Wednesday:

European banks continued to tighten credit standards for companies and households in the second quarter as the sovereign debt crisis impaired their access to funding, the European Central Bank said.

“The downward trend in the net tightening of credit standards on loans to enterprises, which came to a halt in the first quarter of 2010, was reversed in the second quarter, increasing from 3 percent to 11 percent,” the Frankfurt-based central bank said in its quarterly Bank Lending Survey today. “Looking forward, euro-area banks anticipate credit standards on loans to enterprises to tighten somewhat in the third quarter”...

Loans to households and companies in Europe grew at the fastest pace in 20 months in June, a report showed yesterday. The ECB expects the 16-nation euro-region economy to expand 1 percent this year and 1.2 percent in 2011.