Friday, August 14, 2009

July Industrial Production up 0.5%

- by New Deal democrat

This morning Industrial production was reported up 0.5%, as was capacity utilization.

For 4 months I have been highlighting the surge in Leading Economic Indicators. As of this morning, 3 of the 5 known metrics relied upon to date the end of recessions -- real retail sales, aggregate hours worked, and industrial production -- all have stopped declining, and two have affirmatively turned back up.

The remaining two are nonfarm payrolls, which if current trend continues, will turn up in 2-4 months, and wages which remain a real and structural problem.

In summary, the recession has bottomed, but we can't say any meaningful "recovery" has yet begun.