“Industrial production edged down 0.1 percent in March after edging up 0.1 percent in February; for the first quarter as a whole, the index slipped 0.3 percent at an annual rate,” the Fed said in its latest Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report.
Key takeaways from the press release
- Manufacturing production was unchanged in March after declining in both January and February.
- Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.2 percentage point in March to 78.8 percent, a rate that is 1.0 percentage point below its long-run (1972-2018) average.