By Ben Klayman
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. housing market is nearing its bottom, which would end a run of declines that has hit companies across that sector, the chief executive of diversified manufacturer Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Tuesday.
"If we haven't hit bottom, we're awfully close to it," David Speer said at the Reuters Manufacturing Summit in New York. ITW makes fasteners, food service and welding equipment, counter-top materials and other products.
For more than a year, high prices and interest rates have ground down new residential construction activity, with January housing starts down 14.3 percent.
In fact, the slowdown in the U.S. housing and automotive markets is spreading into other corners of the manufacturing world, Speer said.
"We've seen it rippling across other areas," he said.
"Certainly the building materials areas that are related to construction have slowed," he added. "The metals industry has slowed. We've seen it in some of the durable goods, certainly the white goods area. We've seen a general slowing around most industrial end markets."
Speer's comments came after the U.S. Commerce Department reported new orders for U.S.-made durable goods fell by a much worse-than-expected 7.8 percent in January as a steep drop in civilian airliner orders helped push orders for nondefense goods to their biggest monthly decline on record.
But he was quick to point out that in most cases, the declines represented a slowdown in sales growth -- not an outright decline in sales. Continued...
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