US industrial production rose in September for a third consecutive month, Federal Reserve data showed today, suggesting the economy closed out the third quarter with surprisingly strong growth.
The 0.7 per cent increase was much greater than the 0.2 per cent advance that economists polled by Reuters had expected. The report also showed August's gain was revised up to 1.2 per cent from the originally reported 0.8 per cent.
For the third quarter as a whole, output advanced at a 5.2 per cent annual rate, the first quarterly gain since the first quarter of 2008 and the largest increase since the first quarter of 2005.
The figures will likely reinforce the view that the longest recession since the Great Depression ended in the third quarter. Economists in a Reuters poll released yesterday pegged the third-quarter growth rate at 3.1 per cent.
Capacity utilisation, a measure of slack in the economy, rose to 70.5 per cent in September from 69.9 per cent a month earlier, although it was still 10.4 percentage points below its 1972-2008 average.
Reuters