Feb 2010 Industrial Production

Last week’s February production report showed output growth fell as expected on an unadjusted basis, but also a bit more than I’m comfortable with even after seasonal adjustment (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):

I’m not overly concerned yet due to the short working month we had, as well as the fairly decent February trade numbers that were posted. The latter together with slowing output implies a run down in inventories, which suggests March will be catch-up time – watch for better numbers for the month just past.

Technical Notes:

February 2010 Industrial Production Report from the Department of Statistics