PRODUCTION AT U.S. FACTORIES INCHES UP A BIT.(Business)

Byline: John D. McClain Associated Press

Industrial production broke out of a six-month decline in April, the government said Monday. Analysts said the 0.1 percentage-point gain was a sign the nation's hard-hit factories may have seen the worst declines of the recession.

But economist Bruce Steinberg of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in New York said that while the decline in industrial production may be slowing, "it doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet."

Sung Won Sohn, an economist with the Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis, agreed. "It's not clear we have reached the bottom yet," he said.

The April advance was centered in the production of …