This was a post I meant to put up Friday, but was pre-empted by the important housing news.

May industrial production came in unchanged. But that didn't stop Doomers, who had been silent about April's big increase in manufacturing, from trumpeting its 0.4% decline (go ahead, just try to find their acknowledgement of April's good number. You won't.).

So, let's put industrial production in perspective. First, here is the overall stat:

The uptrend since a year ago is still intact.

Next, let's break it down by manufacturing (blue) and mining (red):

The uptrend in each of these since a year ago also still looks intact.

Here is a bar graph of the m/m change in manufacturing:

The 0.4% decline is well within the range of normal monthly volatility.

So there's nothing in the May report which causes me to think that any economic downturn is imminent.