Source: Economics Group of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
Summary
The expected bounce in industrial production was a no-show in November. If you look closely enough, there are some rare examples of growth, but overall production is down 0.7% year-to-date and manufacturing capacity utilization is at a seven-year low (excluding the pandemic).
No Post Storm, Post-Strike Bounce
After storms and strikes held back factory output in October, the hopeful expectation held by the consensus was for a 0.5% payback jump in manufacturing output for November. Instead, today’s report on industrial production offers a sobering assessment of the state of production. Yes, manufacturing technically rose in November, but the scant 0.2% gain was roughly equal to the size of the downward revision to last month’s report which switched out an initially reported decline of 0.5% and replaced it with a 0.7% drop.
Motor vehicle assemblies offered what appeared to be a relative bright spot with production there up 3.5% in November, but that was not enough to recoup the 5.4% drop in the October output for that category. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, manufacturing output was down 0.1% in November.