The data issued
by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday showed that the U.S. industrial production increased
0.9 per cent m-o-m in May, following
an unrevised flat m-o-m performance in April. This marked the
strongest monthly gain in industrial production since July 2023 (+0.9 per cent
m-o-m).
Economists had anticipated
industrial production would advance 0.3 per cent m-o-m in May.
According to
the report, the May jump in total
industrial production reflected increases in output in all three major industry
groups - utilities (+1.6 per cent m-o-m), manufacturing (+0.9 per cent m-o-m) and mining (+0.3 per cent m-o-m).
Meanwhile,
capacity utilization for the industrial sector rose 0.5 percentage point m-o-m
to 78.7 per cent in May from a downwardly
revised 78.2 per cent (from 78.4 per cent) in April. That was 0.1 percentage
point above economists’ forecast of
78.6 per cent but 0.9 percentage point below its long-run (1972-2023) average.
In y-o-y terms, the industrial output grew 0.4 per cent in May, following a
downwardly revised 0.7
per cent drop (from -0.4 per cent) in the previous month. This represented the
first annual advance in U.S. industrial production since December 2023 (+1.1
per cent).