Industrial Production Rises 0.2% In January

Industrial production rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in January, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 0.4% rise. Another sign of weakness came in a slight downward revision to output in the past four months. Even with the revisions, industrial output advanced at a 4.3% annual rate in the fourth quarter. In January, manufacturing output rose 0.2%. Output of business equipment rose 0.8%. Utilities output jumped 2.3% on cold weather in the month. Mining output dropped 1.0% due to a large decline in the index for oil and gas well drilling. Capacity utilization held steady at 79.4%, below the 79.9% consensus. Also, the Fed made its first estimate of industrial capacity expansion for 2015, as it sees a 1.8% gain after a 3.1% rise in 2014.