US: Industrial production rose 0.3 percent in September

"Industrial production rose 0.3 percent in September. The rates of change for July and August were notably revised; the current estimate for July, a decrease of 0.1 percent, was 0.5 percentage point lower than previously reported, while the estimate for August, a decrease of 0.7 percent, was 0.2 percentage point higher than before," the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve announced on Tuesday.

Key takeaways:

• The continued effects of Hurricane Harvey and, to a lesser degree, the effects of Hurricane Irma combined to hold down the growth in total production in September by 1/4 percentage point.
• For the third quarter as a whole, industrial production fell 1.5 percent at an annual rate; excluding the effects of the hurricanes, the index would have risen at least 1/2 percent.
• Manufacturing output edged up 0.1 percent in September but fell 2.2 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter.
• At 104.6 percent of its 2012 average, total industrial production in September was 1.6 percent above its year-earlier level.
• Capacity utilization for the industrial sector increased 0.2 percentage point in September to 76.0 percent, a rate that is 3.9 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2016) average.