Measures of wholesale prices were unchanged in September, the Labor Department said Friday, indicating continued easing in inflation.
The producer price index, which measures what producers get for their goods and services, was flat during the month, rising 1.8% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected a 0.1% month-on-month rise after a 0.2% rise in August.
The PPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2%, in line with expectations.
The report found that the consumer price index (a more widely adopted measure of inflation that shows how much consumers actually paid for goods and services) rose 0.2% in the month and 2.4% from a year earlier. The announcement came a day after the Ministry of Labor’s report.
Markets had little reaction to the data, with stock market futures pointing slightly higher on Wall Street, while Treasury yields on long-term securities rose.
Taken together, these announcements show that while inflation has moved away from the breakneck pace that peaked more than two years ago, it remains roughly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. are.
Within the PPI, a 0.2% decline in final demand goods prices offset a 0.2% rise in services. The index, which excludes trade services from core PPI, rose 0.1%.
While the service index rose due to a 3% rise in deposit service costs, wholesale prices for business and business equipment fell by 6.3%.
On the financial front, the main reason for the decline was a 2.7% decline in final energy demand. Similarly, the gasoline index also fell by 5.6%, suppressing the rise in the goods index. Diesel fuel prices fell by 17.6%.
Fed officials have expressed confidence in recent days that inflation is returning to target, even though some aspects, such as housing, food and vehicle costs, remain high. Minutes from the September central bank meeting showed policymakers divided over the Fed’s decision to cut the benchmark interest rate by 0.5 percentage point.
Most officials say they expect the cuts to continue as long as the data shows. Markets expect the Fed to cut interest rates by a quarter of a point in each of its two remaining meetings this year.
