The Federal Reserve reported on Friday the U.S. industrial production fell 0.6 percent m-o-m in September, following an unrevised 0.4 percent m-o-m advance in August. This was the first monthly decline in industrial production after four consecutive months of gains.

Economists had forecast industrial production would increase 0.5 percent m-o-m in September.

According to the report, manufacturing output decreased 0.3 percent m-o-m in September and the output of utilities fell 5.6 percent m-o-m. Meanwhile, mining production rose 1.7 percent m-o-m in September.

Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.5 percentage point m-o-m to 71.5 percent in September. That was 0.4 percentage points below economists’ forecast and 8.3 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2019) average.

In y-o-y terms, the industrial output dropped 7.3 percent in September, following a revised 7.0 percent plunge in the prior month (originally a 7.7 percent decline).