Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in December. The gain primarily resulted from an increase of 5.9 percent in electric and gas utilities due to unseasonably cold weather. Manufacturing production edged down 0.1 percent, while the output of mines rose 0.2 percent. The change in the overall index was revised up in October, but it was revised down in November; for the fourth quarter as a whole, total industrial production increased at an annual rate of 7.0 percent. At 100.3 percent of its 2002 average, output in December was 2.0 percent below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for total industry edged up to 72.0 percent in December, a rate 8.9 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 to 2008.
There's a lot of information in that paragraph, so let's take it sentence by sentence.
-- Last month's gain was utility driven.
-- Overall manufacturing output dropped, but
-- Raw material extraction increased.
-- The fourth quarter saw a large (7% AR) increase.
-- The total percent of US industrial capacity used for production increased again.
Here are the charts:
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