Wholesale prices shoot up near-record 11.3% in June on surge in energy costs
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watch now Inflation hit hard at the wholesale level in June, as producer prices surged a near-record amount from a year ago due to a big jump in energy costs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.
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The producer price index, a measure of the prices received for final demand products, increased 11.3% from a year ago, the highest reading since the record 11.6% in March. Of that gain, almost 90% came from a 10% increase in final demand energy costs as prices for oil, natural gas and other products soared during the month.
Excluding energy, as well as food and trade service prices, so-called core PPI rose 6.4% on a 12-month basis, a deceleration from the 6.8% gain in May. On a monthly basis, the core measure increased just 0.3%, below the 0.5% Dow Jones estimate. Headline PPI rose 1.1% on the month, higher than the 0.8% estimate. The release comes one day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index, which measures final-sale prices in the marketplace, surged 9.1%, the highest 12-month gain since November 1981. In a separate Labor Department report, weekly jobless claims rose to 244,000 for the week ended July 9, the highest […]