US Wholesale Prices in Surprise Fall
The US producer price index (PPI) for the month of December fell by -0.1%. Economists had been expecting a rise of 0.1%. Core inflation, excluding food and gasoline, rose by 0.3% in a somewhat anomalous move. Energy and food prices…
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The US producer price index (PPI) for the month of December fell by -0.1%. Economists had been expecting a rise of 0.1%. Core inflation, excluding food and gasoline, rose by 0.3% in a somewhat anomalous move.
Energy and food prices fell during December by 0.8% each, led by vegetable prices that fell by -11% and gasoline prices that fell by -2.3%. The gain in core prices came from a 0.9% increase in the cost of new light trucks.
The consumer price index, a broader measure of inflation, is expected to tally a gain of 0.1% when it is released tomorrow.
For the year, producers paid 4.8% more for goods than they did a year ago, the biggest rise since 2007. The rise in the core index is the highest since 2008.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
