November 2024 producer price index:

A measure of wholesale prices rose more than expected in November, adding fuel to the view that progress in bringing down inflation has slowed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday.

The producer price indexwhich measures what producers will get for their goods at the final demand level, up 0.4% for the month, higher than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 0.2%. Annually, PPI rose 3%, the biggest advance since February 2023.

However, excluding food and energy, core PPI increased 0.2%, meeting the forecast. Also, removing trade services left the PPI increase at just 0.1%.

In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that first-time claims for unemployment insurance totaled a seasonally adjusted 242,000 for the week ending Dec. 7, a sharp increase than forecast 220,000 and up 17,000 from the previous period.

In terms of inflation, the news was mixed.

Prices of final demand goods jumped 0.7% on the month. the biggest move since February this year. About 80% of the increase came from a 3.1% increase in food prices, according to the BLS.

Within the food sector, chicken eggs increased by 54.6%, joining across-the-board acceleration in items such as dried vegetables, fresh fruit and poultry. Retail egg prices rose 8.2% in the month and were up 37.5% from a year ago, the BLS said in a separate report Wednesday on consumer prices.

The PPI release comes a day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index, a more widely cited gauge of inflation, also rose to a record high in November to 2.7% on a 12-month basis. months and 0.3% month over month.

Despite the seemingly stubborn state of inflation, markets are widely expecting the Federal Reserve to cut the key overnight lending rate next week. Futures traders are implying a near-certain decline to a quarter of a percentage point when the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee concludes its meeting on Wednesday.

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