Factories Matched Forecast. Utilities Beat It.

The read on Friday's production report settled fast. Factories rebounded, and the rebound belonged to the artificial intelligence build.

Total industrial production rose 0.7 percent in September, the Federal Reserve reported, against the 0.4 percent economists expected. The index stood 2.2 percent above September 2025.

Manufacturing rose 0.3 percent.

That manufacturing figure matched the median forecast in the Bloomberg survey. Nothing in the factory line surprised anyone.

Utilities output rose 3.5 percent. Power generation moves with weather and demand on the grid rather than with factory orders, and that line carried the beat.

Mining output rose 0.2 percent. Those three sectors together make the total.

The key observation is that one manufacturing line rose nearly 20 percent over the year while another fell for the third month running.

Inside manufacturing, two big lines went opposite ways.

Semiconductors and related electronic components rose 2.1 percent in the month. Over twelve months the gain was close to 20 percent.

Motor vehicles and parts fell 3.0 percent, the third straight monthly decline. Vehicle assemblies dropped to an annual rate of 10.21 million units from 10.61 million in August.

Inside that line, vehicles fell 5.4 percent and parts fell 0.6 percent. The weakness sits with finished cars rather than with the suppliers feeding them.

Manufacturing without motor vehicles rose 0.5 percent, its largest gain since April. One line pulled the whole average down.

The gains were not confined to chips. Primary metals, machinery, and electrical equipment each rose 1 percent or more, and nondurable output rose 0.4 percent.

Consumer goods output rose 0.7 percent, its largest gain since February. Production of household goods is not weak across the board, which is what makes the vehicle line stand out.

Durable goods manufacturing rose 0.1 percent in total. That figure nets a 2.1 percent gain against a 3.0 percent fall and describes neither.

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This is a chip-vehicle divergence.

Semiconductor output answers to data center construction, which is business capital spending. Vehicle output answers to households and to buyers abroad.

Those two sources of demand have come apart. The index adds them and publishes one number.

There is a second explanation on offer. Capital Economics tied the vehicle decline to American carmakers losing share in Canada after counter-tariffs.

That would make it an export problem rather than a household one.

The release does not settle that. It reports units built, not who failed to buy them.

Idle capacity sits behind the whole sector. Factories ran at 75.9 percent of capacity in September, against a revised 75.8 percent in August.

Close to a quarter of the installed base is not running. That share has barely moved while the headline rose.

The Truth About Trump And Xi Jinping

President Trump just sat across from Xi Jinping – and I believe the fate of the U.S. dollar was in the room with them.

As China’s Premier arrived for the summit, the press obsessed over tariffs, Iranian sanctions, fentanyl, the military ceremony and the lavish state dinner.

Those were the things everyone was supposed to see.

But the most consequential part of this summit – something that could impact the financial life of every American – was never even mentioned.

I don’t believe Trump brought Xi Jinping to Washington merely to extend a trade truce or discuss sanctions.

I believe he was there to strengthen America’s grip on the most critical resource of the 21st century.

America desperately needs this important resource to reverse the decline of the U.S. dollar.

It’s a resource so powerful that Vladimir Putin has said whoever controls it will “become the ruler of the world.”

No one seems to be asking why Trump really filled the White House with the leaders of the world’s most powerful technology and financial companies…

Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Google’s Sundar Pichai. Apple’s Tim Cook. OpenAi’s Sam Altman. BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser.

Or what these men and women – who between them control more capital than most nations – were really there to discuss.

And almost nobody seems to have connected what happened inside that room to a landmark pact signed by 13 nations inside the State Department… a pact designed to cut China out of the biggest investment wave in financial history.

But I have.

And I believe what I’ve uncovered could profoundly affect everything about your financial future – from your stock portfolio to the purchasing power of every dollar you’ve saved.

In my new documentary, I expose exactly what I believe Trump is really doing, how he has completely bypassed Congress to make it happen – and I share the five mission-critical assets sitting at the heart of a shocking, multi-trillion-dollar gambit to reset the U.S. Dollar.

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New orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. This counts what businesses have committed to buy, and the order is placed before the equipment is built. Continued growth would show the investment side still pulling. A stall would remove the part of manufacturing that is working. (Source: Census Bureau)

The new orders index in the manufacturing survey. This tracks order books across the whole sector rather than inside one product line. A reading above 50 with broad participation would show the split closing. A reading below 50 would show it widening. (Source: Institute for Supply Management)

Capacity utilization in manufacturing. The Federal Reserve publishes it alongside the production figures each month, and it measures how much of the installed base is running. A rise would show demand spreading past the lines already busy. A flat reading would show the idle quarter staying idle. (Source: Federal Reserve)

An index adds every factory together and reports one number. The sum can rise while whole industries inside it shrink.

Talk soon,
The Playbook Daily