Industrial Production Continues to Rebound

I wanted to mention this morning’s industrial production report. For August, it rose by 0.4%. It’s had a nice rebound after a big fall, but it’s got a long way to go to get back to normal.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 1% increase in August.

Industrial production is still 7.3% down from its level in February, the last month before factories shut down across the country to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Manufacturing, the biggest component of production, rose 1%, a slower pace than in June and July.

In the stock market, today is another strong lead for growth over value. I still suspect that the shift to value isn’t quite over.

The Fed meeting starts today. We’ll get the policy statement tomorrow. It now looks like the Fed won’t raise rates this year, next year or the year after that.

Here’s a look at the relative strength of financial stocks. A few days ago, it dipped below the very low level it reached during the financial crisis. This is just a bad time to run a bank.

Posted by on September 15th, 2020 at 3:08 pm


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