It’s a Scorcher: Producer Price Inflation Rips HigherJohn Carney 16 Feb 2024
A key gauge of inflation surged higher in January, confirming earlier data showing that the prices of goods and services in the U.S. rose at a faster clip as the new year began.
The producer price index for final demand, a broad measure of the prices paid for goods and services produced by U.S. business, rose 0.3 percent from a month earlier, the Department of Labor said Friday.
Wall Street had expected a smaller rise of just 0.1 percent. In December, the index fell by 0.1 percent after rising just 0.1 percent in November.
The surge in January pushed the index up at the fastest pace since August of 2023.
The biggest drivers of the increase were prices of services. The services index jumped 0.6 percent from the prior month, the biggest advance since July of 2023.
Core producer prices—a measure that excludes food, energy, and the trade services metric of retail and wholesale margins—rose 0.6 percent, the biggest jump since January of 2023.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2024/02/16/its-a-scorcher-producer-price-inflation-rips-higher/
