"The big thing that stands out are the declines in business equipment, machineries and construction supplies"
- Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial
Industrial output in the world's biggest economy declined in October, hit by the super storm Sandy, which knocked out power in the Northeast. The Federal Reserve said industrial production contracted 0.4% last month, down from a 0.2% gain in the preceding month. Economists had expected output from the factories to rise 0.2%, however, the Fed said the storm cut total production by around 1 percentage point and caused a total damage of $50 billion.
"The big thing that stands out are the declines in business equipment, machineries and construction supplies. When you see that kind of weakness, you can't really attribute it to the storm," said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.
"Manufacturing is still not the source of economic energy that it was earlier in the year," said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist of Jefferies & Co. Inc. in New York. "It's a sluggish story on manufacturing. It's not where it was."
Standard & Poor's erased 0.16 per cent to 1,353.33. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.23 per cent, or 28.57 points, to 12,542.38. The Nasdaq Composite retreated 0.35 per cent to 2,836.94.
© Dukascopy Bank SA