US industrial production, capacity in use jump in December
Industrial production in the States surged ahead last month, boosted by sharply higher output from both mining and utilities.
Significantly, readings for the month of October were subject to large upwards revisions.
According to the Federal Reserve, industrial production jumped by 0.9% month-on-month, easily outpacing the 0.3% rise which economists had penciled in.
Economists had projected an increase of 0.3%.
Acting as a partial offset, November's reading was revised lower by three tenths of a percentage point to show a drop of 0.1% on the month.
However, that for October was marked up to reveal a jump of 1.8% on the month, up from a previous estimate of 1.2%.
As a result, the rate of operating capacity in use was estimated at 77.9% for December, which was well above the 77.3% economists had projected.
By major industry groups, manufacturing production was higher by just 0.1% in comparison to November, albeit following a surge of 1.5% in October.
Mining and utilities output on the other hand rose by 1.6% and 5.6% on the month, respectively.
In comparison to a year ago, industrial production was 3.6% ahead.
Wednesday's reading on industrial production lifted Barclays's tracking estimate for the rate of growth in fourth quarter gross domestic product by one tenth of a percentage point to 3.1%.