The Federal Reserve reported on Friday the U.S. industrial production fell 0.3 m-o-m in December, following a revised 0.8 percent m-o-m surge in November (originally a 1.1 percent m-o-m advance).

Economists had forecast industrial production would decrease by 0.2 percent m-o-m in December.

According to the report, the December drop was due to a 5.6 percent m-o-m tumble in output of utilities, which was attributable to a large decrease in demand for heating due to unseasonably warm weather in December. However, this drop was partially offset by a 0.2 percent m-o-m gain in manufacturing output and 1.3 percent m-o-m jump in mining production.

Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.4 percentage point m-o-m in December to 77.0 percent. That was 0.1 percentage point below economists' forecast and 2.8 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2018) average.

In y-o-y terms, the industrial output dropped 1.0 percent in December, following a revised 0.7 percent fall in the prior month (originally a 0.8 percent decline).