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US producer price index.

 The pro­du­cer price index, which is often regarded as a lead­ing indic­ator of where con­sumer infla­tion

Price

is headed in sev­eral months, rose 0.7 per cent last month from Decem­ber, the US Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics said yes­ter­day, that sur­passed eco­nom­ists’ expect­a­tions for a 0.4 per cent increase. On an annual basis, the PPI, which tracks prices paid to US pro­du­cers for goods and ser­vices, was up 6 per cent from a year ago. That marked a mod­er­a­tion from 6.5 per cent in Decem­ber but came in well above mar­ket fore­casts for 5.4 per cent.

Last month, a block­buster non-farm payrolls report showed the US eco­nomy added more than half a mil­lion jobs in Janu­ary, and the job­less rate fell to a 53year-low of 3.4 per cent. Fed chair Jay Pow­ell then warned rates might rise more than investors expect as the firm labour mar­ket could mean it takes longer for the Fed to hit its 2 per cent tar­get. The S&P 500 was down 0.6 per cent in morn­ing trad­ing, hav­ing man­aged on Wed­nes­day to take stronger than fore­cast retail sales data in its stride. The yield on the interest rate-sens­it­ive two-year US Treas­ury rose 0.02 per­cent­age points to 4.65 per cent, leav­ing it close to a three-month high struck in the pre­vi­ous ses­sion.

The move from 9 per cent to 6 per cent will prove to be much less chal­len­ging than the jour­ney from 6 per cent to 3 per cent,» Lynch said of price infla­tion levels.

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  1. Philip17 February 2023 at 14:09

    It's going to take some work and probably around a year to get inflation to a decent level. And it could not even happen this year. Things are hard to predict especially in the US.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joe17 February 2023 at 15:58

      Especially since they predicted a 0.4% increase and they ended up with a 0.7% one which is almost double. This alone will make things more difficult.

      Delete

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