US industrial production likely rose 0.3 percent in July

The Federal Reserve issues its July report on U.S. industrial output, which includes factories, mines and utilities. The report will be released Friday at 9:15 a.m. Eastern.

PROJECTED INCREASE: Economists forecast that overall industrial production grew 0.3 percent in July, according to a survey by FactSet. Overall production rose 0.2 percent in June, after a 0.5 percent gain in May.

Factory output has risen for the past five months. It rose 0.1 percent in June, led by demand for aircraft, chemicals and furniture.

MANUFACTURING GROWTH: Several other reports suggest that factory production improved in July.

Manufacturers added 28,000 workers last month, according to the government's jobs report. That builds on the 23,000 employees that factories added in June, a sign that companies expect demand to continue its upward swing.

Separately, the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, reported that its manufacturing index climbed to 57.1 in July. That's the highest level since April 2011 and up from 55.3 in June.

Anything above 50 signals that manufacturing activity is growing.

The increase in the index led Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, to conclude that "manufacturing payrolls may soon start to rise by close to 50,000 a month."

Factory orders rose a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent compared with the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Orders had fallen 0.6 percent in May after three straight monthly gains.

An 8.4 percent jump in demand for commercial aircraft drove much of the gain, yet orders also picked up for machinery, iron, steel, computers and electronics.

Rising factory output should help the current economic expansion to continue.

The U.S. economy shrank at a 2.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, although it bounced back at an annual clip of 4 percent in the second quarter

Most analysts expect the economy to expand at a roughly 3 percent rate in the second half the year.