Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in August, in line with expectations
Source: CNBC
Published Thu, Sep 12 2024 8:35 AM EDT Updated 6 Min Ago
Wholesale prices rose in August about in line with expectations, the final inflation data point as the Federal Reserve gets set to lower interest rates.
The producer price index, a measure of final demand goods and services costs that producers receive, increased 0.2% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. That matched the Dow Jones consensus estimate.
Excluding food and energy, PPI increased 0.3%, slightly hotter than the 0.2% consensus estimate. The core increase was the same when excluding trade services. On a 12-month basis, headline PPI rose 1.7%. Excluding food, energy and trade, the annual rate was 3.3%.
In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department said initial filings for unemployment benefits totaled 230,000 for the week ending Sept. 7, up 2,000 from the previous period and higher than the 225,000 estimate.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/12/producer-price-index-august-2024-.html
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PPI for final demand rises 0.2% in August; services increase 0.4%, goods unchanged https://bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm
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8:31 AM · Sep 12, 2024
Article updated.
Previous article -
Wholesale prices rose in August about in line with expectations, the final inflation data point as the Federal Reserve gets set to lower interest rates.
The producer price index, a measure of final demand goods and services costs that producers receive, increased 0.2% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. That matched the Dow Jones consensus estimate.
Excluding food and energy, PPI increased 0.3%, slightly hotter than the 0.2% consensus estimate. The core increase was the same when excluding trade services.
In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department said initial filings for unemployment benefits totaled 230,000 for the week ending Sept. 7, up 2,000 from the previous period and higher than the 225,000 estimate.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Original article -
The producer price index was expected to increase 0.2% in August, according to the Dow Jones consensus forecast.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The inflation situation as of the release of the CPI on 9/11/24 and the PPI (producer price index) on 9/12/24. Here is a summary table followed by the graphs.
Thanks to the sticky CORE CPI, the CME Fedwatch tool https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html is predicting an 87% chance the Fed will cut interest rates a quarter of a point, and 13% chance they will cut half a point. Last week, before yesterday's CPI and today's PPI reports, they were predicting a 60% chance the Fed will cut interest rates a quarter of a point, and 40% chance they will cut half a point.
I annualize them all to be easy to compare to each other, and to compare to the FED's 2% goal. I use the actual index values rather than the one-digit changes that are commonly reported in the media. Links to the data are with the graphs.
ALL the numbers are the seasonally adjusted ones
The "1 month" number is the change from July to August expressed as an annualized number. Except the PCE is the increase from June to July, also annualized.
The "3 month" number is the growth over the last 3 months (and then annualized). It is calculated based on the change in the index number between the latest one and the one 3 months previous. e.g. if the latest index value is 304 and the one 3 months previous is 300, then the 3 month increase is 1.333333%
. . . (304/300 = 1.01333333 => [subtract 1 and multiply by 100%] => 1.333333%)
Annualized, it is 5.4%
. . . (1.01333333^4 = 1.0544095 => [subtract 1 and multiply by 100%] => 5.44095% => 5.4%).
. . . Most people just multiply the 3 month increase by 4 to annualize it: 1.333333%*4 = 5.333333% => 5.3% which isn''t technically correct (it leaves out compounding) but it is close for small percentage changes.
"Regular" is the "headline" number that has "everything"
"Core" is the regular with food and energy removed (The Fed prefers this as a basis for projecting FUTURE inflation)
Finally, the main summary table
All are seasonally adjusted and ANNUALIZED
PCE-Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Fed's favorite inflation measure)
CPI-Consumer Price Index (retail)
PPI-Producer Price Index (Wholesale prices)
Links to the data are with the graphs below
Average real (i.e. inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings are up over the past 2 years and are above the pre-pandemic level:
. . . # Real average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory workers: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000032
. . . # Real average hourly earnings of private sector workers: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000013
And now the graphs, in the following order:
* Core CPI and Regular CPI
* Core PCE and Regular PCE (Core PCE is the Fed's favorite for projecting FUTURE inflation)
* Wholesale inflation - Core PPI and Regular PPI < == This is from today, 9/12/24. Scroll down (or Control End) to see it
CORE CPI through August that came out 9/11/24
CORE CPI (seasonally adjusted) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0L1E
BLS CPI news release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
The Regular aka Headline CPI through August that came out 9/11/24 (CPI=Consumer Price Index)
Regular CPI (seasonally adjusted) https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
BLS CPI news release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Some Additional CPI Series of Interest
Shelter, which is pretty much all rent -- either regular rent or "owners' equivalent rent", has been a problematic issue -- because changes in new rents take several months before they appreciably move the CPI (because of the inertia of 11 months of older rents). It is the largest component of the Core CPI and one of the largest of the regular CPI. Through August, shelter remained elevated at 0.4% month over month for several months, except for a smaller 0.2% increase in June., and a larger 0.5% increase in August. Year-over-year, shelter is up 5.2%
Shelter: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SAH1
Core Inflation less Shelter: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0L12E
^--This is up 0.0% for 3 months in a row, followed by +0.1% in August. The 3 month annualized average is +0.0% (compare to core of +2.1%)
Click on "More Formatting Options" on the upper right hand of screen, and on the page that appears, choose some or all of: "1-Month Percent Change", "3-Month Percent Change" and "12-Month Percent Change".
Headline CPI and Fed Rate Action
November 2019 through August 2024
The first tentative little quarter point rate increase was March 17, 2022, 12 months after year-over-year inflation went north of 2% in March 2021, and had reached 8.5%.
I'm fond of the 3 month averages as they are an average of 3 data points (so can't be easily dismissed as a "one off", unlike a single month-over-month figure), and they have much more recency than 12 month averages (yoy). I think of them as kinda a smoothed version of month-to-month.
FedFunds Target Rate (I used the upper end of the 0.25% width bracket): https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/openmarket.htm
CORE PCE through JULY that came out 8/30/24 (PCE=Personal Consumption Expenditures price index)
CORE PCE (seasonally adjusted): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPILFE
BEA.gov News release: https://www.bea.gov/ and click on "Personal Income and Outlays" or "Personal Income"
This is the one that the Fed weighs most heavily. The Fed weigh the PCE more heavily than the CPI. And in both cases, they weigh the CORE measures higher than the regular headline measures for projecting FUTURE inflation
Regular PCE through JULY that came out 8/30/24
Regular PCE (seasonally adjusted): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPI
BEA.gov News release: https://www.bea.gov/ and click on "Personal Income and Outlays" or "Personal Income"
WHOLESALE INFLATION (PPI - the Producer Price Index)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm
As for which core PPI measure, since the BLS highlights the one below (without food, energy, and trade services) in its reporting (as opposed to the one without food and energy), then I guess I should do likewise. Trade services bounce around a lot from month to month, so I think excluding them from a core measure is the right thing to do.
CORE PPI (excluding food, energy, trade services) through August that came out 9/12/24:
CORE PPI (seasonally adjusted) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPSFD49116
===========================================================
Regular PPI through August that came out 9/12/24 ( includes "everything" ):
Regular PPI (seasonally adjusted) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPSFD4
