U.S. manufacturing output rises
U.S. manufacturers ratcheted up production in February, exceeding analysts’ estimates after a slight decline in industrial output in January, the Federal Reserve said today.
The central bank said industrial production jumped 0.6 percent last month, following a 0.2-percent drop in January and a flat comparative performance in December. The surge was led by a 0.8-percent jump in manufactured goods. The nation’s mining operations, meanwhile, boosted production 0.3 percent but output by utilities fell 0.2 percent.
Analysts polled by Yahoo expected only a small bump of 0.1 percent.
The Fed report said that among manufacturing subsectors:
• Production of consumer durables and consumer non-energy nondurables moved up 2.1 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively. However, the index for consumer energy products decreased 0.8 percent. Within consumer durables, the production of automotive products jumped 4.6 percent to reverse most of a similarly sized decrease in January, and the output of home electronics increased 0.7 percent. These gains in February were partly offset by a 1.7-percent decrease in the production of appliances, furniture, and carpeting as well as a decline of 0.1 percent in the output of miscellaneous goods.
• Within consumer non-energy nondurables, the indexes for foods and tobacco, for chemical products, and for paper products each rose about 1 percent, while the output of clothing dropped 0.7 percent.
• Production of business equipment rose 1.3 percent after having been little changed, on net, over the preceding four months. The indexes for transit equipment and industrial and other equipment, which had been the principal contributors to the slower pace of business equipment growth in those months, increased 2 percent and 1.6 percent in February, respectively. The February production rate was 2.8 percent above its year-earlier level.
• On the other hand, information processing equipment, such as computers, posted a small decrease in February after having advanced somewhat from September to January.
• The production of defense and space equipment increased 0.2 percent in February, following a decline of 0.3 percent in January. The index for this group was 2.6 percent above its level of 12 months earlier.
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