Quick Notes on Today's News

Felt like getting one last post in this week before a leisurely weekend.
From the Fed via Calculated Risk:

"Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in December. The gain primarily resulted from an increase of 5.9 percent in electric and gas utilities due to unseasonably cold weather. Manufacturing production edged down 0.1 percent, while the output of mines rose 0.2 percent. The change in the overall index was revised up in October, but it was revised down in November; for the fourth quarter as a whole, total industrial production increased at an annual rate of 7.0 percent. At 100.3 percent of its 2002 average, output in December was 2.0 percent below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for total industry edged up to 72.0 percent in December, a rate 8.9 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 to 2008."

I originally saw the 0.6 percent increase story on CNBC early this morning, (way too early in fact, my CNBC realtime app woke me up at 6:26AM), but no mention of unseasonably cold weather over there, at least not on the 6:20 version of the article, maybe its been updated since. Either way, an increase in industrial production is better than a decrease.

Also, the BLS released CPI and wage numbers today. The CPI was up .1%, hopefully alleviating some inflation worries. Real average hourly earnings were unchanged. Not a lot going on here other than more non-inflationary news. I'm going to have trouble calling this a real recovery until we get positive jobs information.