WASHINGTON – The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods, a measure of wholesale prices, rose 1.3 percent last month after seasonal adjustment, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
The gain was more than twice the 0.5-percent median forecast in a survey of 71 economists by Bloomberg News. It followed a 0.6-percent decline in January and a 0.9-percent rise in December.
Excluding food and energy, the BLS said, the index rose 0.4 percent last month, doubling January’s increase of 0.2 percent.
The PPI of 162.0 points (1982 = 100) was 2.5 percent higher than in February 2006, the BLS said. Excluding food and energy, it was 1.8 percent higher.
“The numbers bear watching by the Fed and the markets,” Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh, had told Bloomberg before the report. “Core inflation is still a little higher than the Fed would like.”
Additional information, including the 18-page Producer Price Indexes report, can be found at www.bls.gov.ppi.
