The Federal
Reserve reported on Friday that the U.S. industrial production jumped 0.4
percent m-o-m in May, following a revised 0.4 percent m-o-m decrease in April (originally
a 0.5 percent m-o-m drop). That was the biggest gain in industrial production
since November 2018.
Economists had
forecast industrial production would increase 0.2 percent m-o-m in May.
According to
the report, the index for utilities climbed 2.1 percent m-o-m in May, while the
indexes for manufacturing and mining gained 0.2 percent m-o-m and 0.1 percent
m-o-m, respectively.
Capacity
utilization for the industrial sector increased 0.2 percentage point m-o-m in May
to 78.1 percent. That was 0.1 percentage point above economists’ forecast but
1.7 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2018) average.
In y-o-y terms,
the industrial output rose 2.0 percent in May, following an unrevised 0.9
percent advance in the prior month.