The Federal Reserve reported on Thursday the U.S. industrial production rose 1.4 percent m-o-m in March, following a revised 2.6 percent m-o-m decrease in February (originally a 2.2 percent m-o-m drop).

Economists had forecast industrial production would increase 2.8 percent m-o-m in March.

According to the report, manufacturing output rose 2.7 percent m-o-m in March and mining production surged 5.7 percent m-o-m. Meanwhile, the output of utilities plunged 11.4 percent m-o-m, as the demand for heating reduced because of a swing in temperatures from an unseasonably cold February to an unseasonably warm March.

Capacity utilization for the industrial sector increased 1.0 percentage point m-o-m to 74.4 percent in March. That was 1.3 percentage points below economists’ forecast and 5.2 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2020) average.

In y-o-y terms, the industrial output rose 1.0 percent in March, following a revised 4.8 percent plunge in the prior month (originally a 4.2 percent decline). This marked the first annual increase in industrial production since August 2019.

For the first quarter as a whole, total industrial production grew 2.5 percent y-o-y.