Economy
April 18, 2016
Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization for March 2016
Written by John Packard
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. This month the historical data has been revised and we have updated our files back to January 2000. The index had an all-time high of 106.40 in January 2015 but on a month over month basis has declined for 13 of the last 16 months.
On a three month moving average (3MMA) basis, growth year over year has been negative for the last six months. October last year was the first negative growth month since February 2010. The March y/y decline was 1.70% (Figure 1). Data is seasonally adjusted and the index is based on the May 2012 level being defined as 100. Recessions are highlighted. The effect of the revisions has been to reduce the growth rate since the beginning of 2014. Before that the revisions didn’t make much difference.
