WASHINGTON – The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods edged up a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month, as an increase in prices for finished foods was largely outweighed by a decline in energy costs, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a report today. The rise followed a 1.1-percent advance in September and a 1.4-percent decline in August.
The October increase in wholesale prices lagged the 0.4-percent increase that was the median estimate from a Bloomberg News survey of 75 economists. (Their forecasts ranged from a decline of 0.3 percent to an increase of 1.3 percent.)
The PPI for finished consumer foods rose 1.0 percent last month, while prices for finished energy goods fell 0.8 percent. Core prices excluding food and energy – expected to rise 0.2 percent – were essentially unchanged from their September level, the BLS said.
Compared with the same month of 2006, the PPI rose 6.1 percent in October to 168.6 points (1982 = 100), accelerating from September’s year-over-year increase of 4.4 percent. The increase was led by a 16.6-percent increase in the index for finished energy goods and a 7.1-percent increase in prices for finished consumer foods. The core PPI, for goods other than food and energy, rose 2.5 percent compared with October 2006.
“The spike in energy costs is a concern, but so far there hasn’t been much spillover,” Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland, told Bloomberg News. “There’s some comfort for the Fed that we’re not seeing a lot of pass-through in energy costs, but the potential remains.”
Additional information, including the 18-page Producer Price Indexes report, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov/ppi.
