Thursday May 14, 03:29 PM
US wholesale prices on the rise again
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US wholesale prices rose in April after a surprise dip a month earlier, according to Labor Department data published Thursday.
The 0.3 percent April rise in the producer price index for finished good on a seasonally adjusted basis followed a 1.2 percent decline in March and increases in the previous two months, the department said.
Analysts had expected a 0.2 increase in April.
On a 12-month basis, prices fell 3.7 percent from April 2008, the largest annual decline since January 1950.
Data showed that wholesale prices fell sharply in April primarily because of plunging prices for food and energy products.
When food and energy prices are excluded, core prices rose 0.1 percent from the previous month.
The core producer price index is now up 3.4 percent year on year, down from the 4.6 percent peak in October last year, "and it has a long way to fall," said Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist with High Frequency Economics.
Moody's Economy.com also said that the year on year rate was still fairly high, "but very low rates of capacity utilization and earlier declines in intermediate goods prices will cause core inflation to fall further in the coming months."
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