Minneapolis CNN —
US wholesale inflation rose more than expected in July, reversing a yearlong cooling trend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
The Producer Price Index, which tracks the average change in prices that businesses pay to suppliers, rose 0.8% annually. That’s above June’s upwardly revised increase of 0.2% and higher than expectations for a 0.7% gain, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv.
Producer price hikes increased 0.3% from June to July, the highest monthly increase since January.
PPI is a closely watched inflation gauge since it captures average price shifts before they reach consumers, and is a proxy for potential price changes in stores.
When stripping out the more volatile categories of food and energy, core PPI rose 2.4% annually in July. That’s in line with what was seen in June but a tick above economists’ expectations for a slight cooling.
On a month-to-month basis, core PPI increased 0.3%, also the highest monthly gain since January.
US stock futures tumbled after the report was released, as the hotter-than-expected data fueled concerns that the Federal Reserve will continue to hike rates in order to rein in inflation.
The report comes just one day after the Consumer Price Index showed that prices rose 3.2% annually in July. That increase, which was below the 3.3% economists were anticipating, was largely driven by year-over-year comparisons to a softer inflation number the year before.
This story is developing and will be updated.