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December gain lift 2004 growth to 4.1%, best annual showing in four years.
January 14, 2005: 9:21 AM EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. industrial production rose a more-than-expected 0.8 percent in December and was up 4.1 percent for 2004, the best annual showing in four years, a government report showed Friday.
Capacity utilization also rose more than expected to 79.2 percent, the highest level since January 2001, a Federal Reserve report indicated. Capacity utilization of 78 percent for 2004 was the highest since 82 percent in 2000.
Analysts had expected industrial production to gain 0.4 percent on the month, and capacity utilization to reach 78.9 percent.
Industrial production gained last month as utilities production climbed 2.7 percent and manufacturing production grew by 0.7 percent.
Falling energy costs leads producer price index down 0.7% in December, well below forecasts.
January 14, 2005: 8:47 AM EST
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Falling energy prices led overall wholesale prices down in December, the first broad decline posted in six months, according to a government report Friday that put this inflation measure significantly lower than Wall Street expectations.
The producer price index, which measures the price of finished goods sold to businesses, posted a 0.7 percent decrease in December, according to the Labor Department, compared to a 0.5 percent rise seen in November. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast that the PPI would drop 0.2 percent.
Energy prices were down 4 percent in the month, as wholesale gasoline fell 14.4 percent and home heating oil prices fell 10.0 percent on that basis.
It was the sharpest fall in overall wholesale energy prices since April 2003, the month after U.S. forces first entered Iraq. But overall, finished energy prices are still up 13.4 percent from a year earlier.
The so-called "core-PPI," which excludes often volatile food and energy prices, posted a 0.1 percent increase, compared with the 0.2 percent rise in November. Economists' forecasts had been for the core-PPI to grow 0.2 percent.
The minutes of the December Federal Open Market Committee show that Fed policy makers are more concerned than previously believed about the risk of inflation, which has raised expectations of future interest rate hikes. But the December report suggests that inflationary pressures so far remain in check.
The index shows a 2.2 percent rise in the core-PPI over the last 12 months. While that's up from the 1.0 percent rise in the core-PPI in 2003 and a 0.5 percent decline seen in 2002, it is still generally considered a sign of only modest inflationary pressures.