U.S. industrial production ramped up in February, more than doubling a solid gain in January.

The Federal Reserve’s latest Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report, issue on March 18, showed production increased 0.7% in February month-to-month, exceeding market expectations of a 0.2% rise polled by major news outlets. Production increased 0.3% in January.

At 104.2% of its 2017 average, total industrial production increased 1.4% year-over-year. Capacity utilization moved up to 78.2%, which is 1.4-percetage-points below its long run (1972-2023) average.

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Total February production was impacted by an increase of 0.4% in manufacturing that was offset by a 2.5% decrease in utilities.

However, February was positively impacted by an increase in manufacturing output by 0.9%, boosted by an increase in motor vehicles and parts of 8.5%. Likewise, mining increased 2.8% in February.

U.S. Total Industrial Production Index – Month-to-Month

source: tradingeconomics.com

Market Groups

Most market groups saw gains in February. The index for consumer goods increased 0.2%, as an increase in production of durable consumer goods (4.3%) offset a decline in the production of nondurable consumer goods (0.8%).

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Business equipment showed a positive gain with a 1.6% increase in February, driven by a strong gain in transit equipment of 7.9%.

Industry Groups

Manufacturing output increased 0.9% in February month-to-month. Nondurable manufacturing saw an increase of 0.2%, with gains in chemicals offsetting a decline in food, beverage and tobacco products. In contrast, the index for other manufacturing (publishing and logging) saw a decrease of 0.1%.

Mining output increased 2.8% in February month-to-month, while utilities decreased 2.5% as output for electric utilities (1.2%) and natural gas utilities (11.1%) declined.

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Mining output decreased 1.2% in January month-to-month, while utilities increased 7.2%, supported by a gain in electric (6.1%) and natural gas utilities (15.4%).

Capacity utilization for manufacturing increased 0.6 points in February to 77.0%.