manufacturing

November Industrial Production Jumps By 1.3%

Industrial production is on fire with a 1.3% November gain.  Even better, the Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows upward revisions all the way back to June 2014.   October was revised from a -1.0% decline to 0.1% growth.  This month gains were across the board,, another good sign for the economy.

Industrial Production October Ho-Hum, Capacity Utilization Still Stunted

The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows a -1.0% decline in industrial production for October and September was revised down to 0.8% growth.  Manufacturing alone grew by 0.2%, but utilities dropped by -0.7% after last month's large gain.  Mining also decreased by almost a percentage point, -0.9%.

Labor Productivity Increases 2.0% for Q3

The BLS Productivity & Costs report for Q3 2014 shows labor productivity increased 2.0% annualized.  Output increased 4.4% and hours worked increased 2.3%.  Unit Labor costs increased only 0.3% in Q3 2014.  The reason labor productivity rose was because economic output grew more than worker hours.  Overall labor is still getting squeezed for more efficiency and wages are still repressed.

ISM Manufacturing Shows Highest Production in a Decade and New Orders On Fire

The October ISM Manufacturing Survey recovered from last month's plunge.  PMI rose by 2.4 percentage points to 59%.  New orders caused the overall gain and by themselves jumped up 5.8 percentage points to the 60's level.  Production is at highs not seen in a decade.  This is a great report, even with declines in petroleum and coal.

 

Industiral Production Up 1.0% on Utilities

The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows a 1.0% increase in industrial production for September.  Manufacturing alone grew by 0.5%, cancelling out last month's -0.5% decline.  Utilities exploded with a 3.9% monthly increase.  Mining grew by 1.8%, also a sizable amount for a month.

Industrial Production Makes Up Ground From January's Bad WeatherRoars Back in February

The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows a 0.6% increase in industrial production.  Manufacturing alone grew by 0.8% for the month after plunging -0.9% in January due to horrific weather.  This is the largest factory output gain since last August,  Utilities were slightly down by -0.2% after January's polar vortex winter increase of 3.8%.  Mining increased 0.3%.

ISM Manufacturing PMI Bounce Back While Production Pummeled for February 2014

The February ISM Manufacturing Survey somewhat recovered from last month's plunge.  PMI rose by 1.9 percentage points to 53.2%.  This range is really mediocre growth for manufacturing.  New orders did rebound with a 3.3 percentage point increase.  Yet production just completely imploded, the second month in a row.  Many blame the unusually bad weather and freezing cold.

Another Month, Another Piss Poor Jobs Report

The BLS employment report shows total nonfarm payroll jobs gained were another dismal 113,000 for January 2014, with private payrolls adding 142,000 jobs.  Government jobs decreased by -29,000.  The silver lining of the jobs report is while the government continues to cut, cut, cut, there wasn't a lot of growth in crappy jobs and gains achieved were in typically higher paying ones.  The U.S. post office alone shed 9,000 jobs.

ISM Manufacturing PMI Pummeled for January 2014

The January ISM Manufacturing Survey PMI was pummeled with an astounding -5.2 percentage point drop in a month.  PMI is barely breathing any growth now, down to 51.3%.  New orders simply imploded with a -13.2 percentage point decline.  This is the largest monthly decline in the history of the ISM manufacturing survey for new orders by our calculations.  Many are blaming the unusually bad weather and freezing cold.

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