Preview: Due May 15 - U.S. April Industrial Production - Restoring an improvement in trend
We expect a 0.3% increase in April industrial production with a matching increase in manufacturing, restoring signs of an improvement in trend in early 2026 after slippage in March.
Manufacturing signals have generally been picking up with ISM manufacturing data positive in the first four months of the year. April’s non-farm payroll showed aggregate manufacturing hours worked up by 0.2%m, which with modest productivity gains would allow a 0.3% rise in manufacturing output. We do not expect a significant impact from autos this month.
Higher oil prices may be supportive for mining, where we expect a 0.5% increase, but the non-farm payroll does not imply a strong April increase. With utilities seen little changed, we expect overall industrial production to match the manufacturing increase.
We expect capacity utilization to increase to 75.8% from 75.7% with manufacturing at 75.4% from 75.3%. In neither case would this fully erase slippage in March.
