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A shopper looks at flat screen plasma televisions in a Best Buy store in Downers Grove, Illinois. US consumer sentiment hit a nine-month high in April, strengthening views economic activity was regaining momentum after a weather-induced lull early this year.
US producer prices recorded their largest increase in nine months in March as the cost of food and trade services surged, pointing to some pockets of inflation at the factory gate.
Other data yesterday showed consumer sentiment hit a nine-month high in April, strengthening views economic activity was regaining momentum after a weather-induced lull early this year.
The Labour Department said its seasonally adjusted producer price index for final demand increased 0.5% last month, the largest increase since June last year, after slipping 0.1% in February.
Economists, who has expected prices received by the nation’s farms, factories and refineries to gain only 0.1%, were puzzled by the increase last month.
The government has revamped the PPI series to include services and construction. The series’ short history makes it difficult to gauge a trend.
“It could be that the difficult weather over the past few months has distorted prices, and wholesale inflation will settle down in April,” said Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
“But there is also the possibility that inflation may be picking up, as firms raise prices given the recent limited acceleration in wage growth and stronger demand.”
Producer prices excluding volatile food and energy costs rose 0.6%, the biggest rise since March 2011. The so-called core PPI for final demand had declined 0.2% in February.
The broader PPI will over time track closely the Consumer Price Index. Inflation has been running very low, allowing the Federal Reserve to maintain its expansionary monetary policy to nurse the economy.
A separate report showed the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rose to 82.6 in early April, the highest since July, from 80.0 in March.
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