Economy

Industrial Production: Manufacturing Strength Outweighs Hurricane Impact

American Manufacturing Sector Graphic Concept. (Photo: AdobeStock)

Industrial production in the U.S. ticked up 0.1% in October as hurricane-impacted utility and mining sectors were outweighed by manufacturing output. In October, manufacturing output rose 0.3% for the fifth straight monthly gain, while the indexes for mining and for utilities fell 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively.

Capacity utilization for the industrial sector was 78.4%, a rate that is 1.4% below its long-run (1972–2017) average.

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Released On 11/16/2018 9:15:00 AM For Oct, 2018

	Prior	Prior Revised	Consensus	Consensus Range	Actual
Production – M/M change	0.3 %	0.2 %	0.2 %	-0.1 % to 0.4 %	0.1 %
Manufacturing – M/M	0.2 %		0.3 %	-0.5 % to 0.4 %	0.3 %
Capacity Utilization Rate – Level	78.1 %	78.5 %	78.2 %	77.9 % to 78.4 %	78.4 %

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Upward revisions to mining pushed the overall index to an annual rate of 4.7% in the third quarter (Q3), significantly higher than the initially reported 3.3% gain. Hurricanes hurt industrial production in both September and October, but appear to account for less than 0.1% each month.

At 109.1% of its 2012 average, total industrial production was 4.1% higher in October than it was a year earlier.

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PPD Business Staff

PPD Business, the economy-reporting arm of People's Pundit Daily, is "making sense of current events." We are a no-holds barred, news reporting pundit of, by, and for the people.