US: Industrial Production expands by 0.7% in April vs. 1% expected

• Industrial Production in US rose at a softer pace than expected in April.
• US Dollar Index stays deep in the red below 90.50.

Industrial Production in the United States expanded by 0.7% on a monthly basis in April, the US Federal Reserve reported on Friday. This reading followed March's increase of 2.4% (revised from 1.4%) and fell short of analysts' estimate of 1%.

Additional takeaways

"The index for manufacturing rose 0.4% despite a drop in motor vehicle assemblies that principally resulted from shortages of semiconductors."

"An important contributor to the gain in factory output was the return to operation of plants that were damaged by February's severe weather in the south-central region of the country and had remained offline in March."

"Capacity utilization for the industrial sector rose 0.5 percentage point in April to 74.9%, a rate that is 4.7 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2020) average."

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index showed no immediate reaction to this report and was last seen losing 0.3% at 90.45.