Oregon Economic Forecast » Industrial Production http://oregon.clucerf.org Center for Economic Research and Forecasting Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:06:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 Industrial Production http://oregon.clucerf.org/2010/02/industrial-production/ http://oregon.clucerf.org/2010/02/industrial-production/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:32:16 +0000 Dan Hamilton http://oregon.clucerf.org/2010/02/industrial-production/ Today’s not-much-noticed Industrial Production data release showed that January’s Industrial Production was up a bit from December. This report also indicated that capacity utilization increased a bit in January from December. Notice, charts below, capacity utilization and industrial production have been improving for 6 months now. This is enough to indicate a trend, indicating . . . → Read More: Industrial Production]]> Today’s not-much-noticed Industrial Production data release showed that January’s Industrial Production was up a bit from December. This report also indicated that capacity utilization increased a bit in January from December. Notice, charts below, capacity utilization and industrial production have been improving for 6 months now. This is enough to indicate a trend, indicating that manufacturing and related sectors are slowly coming to back to life. The levels of these indicators are still low within a longer historical perspective; see the longer Industrial Production chart below. At the current rate of improvement, we might get to healthier levels by midyear.

]]> http://oregon.clucerf.org/2010/02/industrial-production/feed/ 0 Today’s United States Economic News http://oregon.clucerf.org/2009/10/today%e2%80%99s-united-states-economic-news/ http://oregon.clucerf.org/2009/10/today%e2%80%99s-united-states-economic-news/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:46:45 +0000 Dan Hamilton http://oregon.clucerf.org/?p=127 The Economic news is mostly negative today with Consumer Confidence dropping below the consensus forecast. MGIC, the nation’s third largest mortgage insurer, posted a third quarter $518 million loss after a record number of homeowners failed to meet their mortgage payments. Bank of America posted a $2.2 billion loss, although $400 million of that . . . → Read More: Today’s United States Economic News]]> The Economic news is mostly negative today with Consumer Confidence dropping below the consensus forecast. MGIC, the nation’s third largest mortgage insurer, posted a third quarter $518 million loss after a record number of homeowners failed to meet their mortgage payments. Bank of America posted a $2.2 billion loss, although $400 million of that was a fee paid so they could exit an agreement with the government designed to shield the company from further losses. Bank of America reported that part of their losses was due to households not making mortgage and credit card payments.

However, there is some good news. Industrial Production has been rising for three months now. The level of 98.5 is a bit low to be consistent with robust economic growth. In recent cycles, Industrial Production index levels have exceeded 100 when the economy was growing. Interestingly, if it continues to rise then manufacturing could lead the United States economy out of the recession. I believe that this would consist of only gradual growth though, as other sectors, namely banking and real estate will likely remain weak for some time after any manufacturing rebound.

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