Increased Auto Sales Drive Industrial Production.
Industrial Production (August 2013)
– Production Month/Month +0.4%. Previous was flat.
– Capacity Utilization Rate 77.8%. Previous was 77.6%.
– Manufacturing Month/Month +0.7%. Previous revised down to -0.4%.
A lot of the recent gains in IP and manufacturing have been about folks finally buying cars after a long period of weak car sales. A lengthy discussion about Manufacturing Jobs may be seen in my newsletter of last Friday.
Today’s rally in bonds started yesterday in Japan after Lawrence Summers announced that he was dropping out of contention for the Fed Chairmanship. Summers was perceived by market participants as being more likely to support early tapering.