It's The Economy Stupid: Manufacturing & Production. Going down. Down, down, down, down, down.

Pardon my Jeff Beck reference, but the Manufacturing & Production numbers really are going down.

 

Economic Event	Period	Economic Survey	Actual Reported	Original Prior	Revised Prior
Industrial Production	OCT	0.2%	-0.4%	0.4%	0.2%
Capacity Utilization	OCT	78.3%	77.8%	78.3%	78.2%
Manufacturing Production	OCT	0.2%	-0.9%	0.2%	0.1%

 

Industrial Production in the U.S. unexpectedly declined in October as SuperStorm Sandy knocked out power in the Northeast.  Output at factories, mines and utilities dropped to -0.4 percent last month after a revised 0.2 percent increase in September that was smaller than previously estimated.  Economists forecast a

0.2 percent gain, according to the Bloomberg survey median. The Fed said the storm cut total production by almost 1 percentage point.

 

Manufacturing Production, which makes up 75 percent of total production, slumped 0.9 percent last month, matching August as the biggest decrease since May 2009. Factory output excluding the effects of Sandy was about unchanged in October from the prior month, the Fed said.  Estimates of the 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg for overall production ranged from a 0.3 percent decrease to a 0.6 percent gain. September’s figure was previously reported as a

0.4 percent increase.

 

 

John Broussard

Assistant State Treasurer

Chief Investment Officer

State of Louisiana

Department of the Treasury