Optimism is likely to be in short supply at next week’s spring furniture trade show in High Point.

The market, which enters its 99th year Monday, will run through April 13. It is closed to the public.

The industry, particularly U.S. manufacturers and marketers, has been in a deep orders slump since June 2006, hampered by higher energy prices, the national housing crisis, and increasing credit-card debt and job insecurity among consumers.

More discouraging news arrived yesterday.

New orders were off 5 percent in January, to $1.9 billion, compared with January 2007, according to the monthly survey by Smith Leonard PLLC, a financial-services company in High Point.

However, 52 percent of the participants in the survey reported a drop in orders during January, compared with 69 percent in December.

“Overall, business is just not that good,” said Ken Smith, the director of furniture services for Smith Leonard. “While we are still selling a lot of furniture, we suspect a lot of what has been selling has been at some pretty heavy discounts.”

Smith said that the continuing decline in orders is hard on an industry in which officials are grasping for any positive economic news.

“Most of the people we talk with do not expect much improvement over the rest of 2008,” Smith said.

While we were hoping that we might have bottomed out, there continues to be very negative news and commentary about the economy.

“The stock market is not doing much for consumers, and high gas prices are clearly not helping,” he said.

“We also believe it is going to be a while before the housing market improves.”

Laura Champine, an analyst with Morgan Keegan, said she “can’t imagine the High Point Market being anything but depressing.” She said she expects that attendance will drop compared with the spring 2007 market, which had an overall registration of 85,708, according to the High Point Market Authority. The number does not mean that everyone who registered attended the market.

Champine said that the rival Las Vegas market has chipped away at High Point’s market share, but noted, “I don’t think a lot of good business is being done in the furniture industry.”

Consumer interest in buying furniture dropped again in March, according to the Furniture Buying Index, which is compiled by America’s Research Group of Charleston, S.C. The group asks 5,000 to 8,000 consumers monthly about their interest in buying furniture. The index decreased two points to 64 after hitting a more than six-year low of 66 in February.

“It is going to be some time before retailers see the number of shoppers they had in the store this time last year,” said Britt Beemer, the chairman of America’s Research Group.

“Consumers planning to spend money are thinking more about home-improvement projects around the house and yard than the furniture inside their home.”