Wholesale Prices See Highest Annual Increase in Over Three Years

Wholesale prices in April posted their highest annual increase in more than three years, signaling more nettlesome inflation as pipeline costs intensify. The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022. On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022. Excluding food and energy, core PPI accelerated 1%, compared to the 0.4% estimate. Excluding food, energy and trade services, PPI rose 0.6 %. Energy was at the root of the unexpectedly high gain in producer prices, as it was for a surge in consumer prices that the BLS reported Tuesday. For PPI, some three-quarters of the gain in goods prices stemmed from a 7.8% jump in final demand energy, the BLS said. More than 40% of that was traced to a 15.6% surge in gasoline, during a month when prices at the pump soared well past $4 a gallon as pressures from the Iran war hit the broader energy complex. While much of the inflation move has been attributed to the war and President Donald Trump's tariffs that were introduced a year ago, the PPI data shows the price pressures were broad-based. The services index accelerated 1.2%, the biggest monthly gain since March 2022. Two-thirds of the move was attributed to a 2.7% gain in trade services, a sign that tariff costs could be starting to have a larger impact on prices. The move also was buttressed by a 3.5% jump in margins for machinery and equipment wholesaling.