Today, the Federal Reserve released their monthly read of industrial production showing continued weakness to aggregate production with widespread declines across many industries, particularly those related to consumer spending, construction and business vehicles, resulting in a significant year-over-year decline to the total index of 4.06% as compared to October 2007 but a 1.26% increase since September 2008.It’s important to note that although September showed a particularly strong declines as a result of the impacts of hurricanes Ike and Gustave, the strongly slumping trend that is clearly perceptible in the charts below was firmly in-place prior to those events.
“Final product” consumer durable goods continue to show weakness falling 13.19% as an aggregate on a year-over-year basis, with particularly significant declines coming specifically from home appliances, furniture and carpeting which declined for the thirtieth consecutive month by 17.88% on a year-over-year basis.Construction supply production has been showing the most severe contraction to wood products seen in at least the last 20 years.
Although automotive production has been showing weakness since the middle of 2004, business vehicle production is now showing a stark contraction.
The following charts (click for larger) show the overall consumer durable component along with the Home Appliances, Furniture and Carpeting sub-component on both a time series and year-over-year basis, construction supply production with the wood products sub-component, and general and business related vehicle production all overlaid with the last two recessions for comparisons purposes.
