· Industrial
production rose 0.3% last month but the increase recovered less than
half of the downwardly revised 0.7% drop in October. The Consensus
expectation had been for a 0.2% rise.
· Factory output also recovered from an October drop that was revised deeper. The 0.4% November increase left the three month change in output at -0.3%.
· Output gains were broad based. Production in the motor vehicle & parts industries rose 1.6% and recovered all of the prior month's 1.5% drop. However that still left output down 1.6% from a year earlier. Output of furniture & related products bounced 0.4% (-2.0% y/y) following two months of sharp decline and output of construction supplies was unchanged (1.0% y/y).
· Also in the consumer goods sector, production of computers & electronics rose 1.5% (+13.4% y/y). Output of apparel was unchanged (-3.8% y/y) but output of chemical products was down for the fourth straight month (-0.5% y/y).
· Output of business equipment
rose a solid 1.0% (4.0% y/y). Output of information & processing
equipment surged 2.3% (9.3% y/y). Three month growth amounted to 11.9%
(AR). Production of industrial equipment inched up 0.2% after a 0.9%
October shortfall. Three month growth recovered to 2.7% (AR), well below
the 6.7% growth of last year.
· In the materials category output rose 0.5% and recovered all of the prior month's decline. Production of durable consumer parts rose 0.9% (5.0 y/y). Production of durable equipment parts surged 1.4% (7.4% y/y) but consumer durable parts output only rose 0.5% (-0.5% y/y) after three months of sharp decline.
· Capacity utilization inched up to 81.5% from a revised 81.4% in October. Utilization in the factory sector also rose slightly m/m to 79.8% and averaged 80.2% last year. Capacity rose 0.1% (1.8% y/y).
· The Macroeconomics of Oil Shocks from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia can be found here.