Federal Reserve System (Fed) Industrial Production y/y

The index of industrial production for one month is published by the middle of the following month by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It measures the real production of industry, mining, electricity and gas utilities. The first indices date from 1919 and were initiated to meet the Federal Reserve's need for timely data on a highly cyclical industry. Unlike many other economic indicators, IP indices are estimated on the basis of detailed industry or product-level data compiled by other companies, not, for example, on the basis of the results of a proprietary survey.

The aggregated index for total industrial production consists of 299 detailed indices measuring production in individual parts of the industrial sector. Some of these indices are based on direct measures of production, while others are constructed from indirect measures of production. Many indices reflect the monthly production working hours of an industry as collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The timely collection and publication of data reveals rapid trend reversals, making the index one of the first statistics to provide information on economic activity in the previous month.

For traders, it is an important leading indicator of the future performance of assets in the market. For this reason, the report can also serve as a "trigger" for increased buying or selling pressure in certain industries.

In general, an increase in the value of industrial production index has a positive effect on the USD.