May 14, 2009

Industrial production decreased 0.5% in April after having fallen 1.7% in March.
 
Production in manufacturing declined 0.3% in April and was 16% below its recent peak in December 2007. The decreases in manufacturing in April remained broadly based across industries.
 
Outside of manufacturing, the output of mines fell 3.2%, as oil and gas field drilling and support activities continued to drop. The output of utilities moved up 0.4%.
 
At 97.1% of its 2002 average, industrial output in April was 12.5% below its year-earlier level.
 
The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell further in April, to 69.1%, a low over the history of this series, which begins in 1967.

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Wholesale prices rose 0.3 percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. This rise followed a 1.2-percent decline in March and a 0.1-percent increase in February. 

At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by producers of intermediate goods moved down 0.5 percent following a 1.5-percent decrease a month earlier, and the crude goods index advanced 3.0 percent after declining 0.3 percent in March.       
 
Among finished goods, prices for consumer foods rose 1.5 percent in April following a 0.7-percent decrease in the previous month. The index for finished energy goods edged down 0.1 percent subsequent to a 5.5-percent decline in March. Prices for …