U.S. April Producer Prices Rise 0.9%; Core Up 0.1%

[swag]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=a4pPqrTgbq9g&refer=home

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest jump in gasoline costs in more than a year propelled U.S. wholesale prices higher in April. Excluding fuel and food, prices rose less than forecast, supporting the Federal Reserve's view that inflation is tame.

The 0.9 percent increase in the measure of all prices paid to factories, farmers and other producers was the biggest in seven months, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The core rate, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1 percent for a second month.

Treasury prices rose on signs that small increases in core prices may give Fed policy makers an opportunity to hold rates steady in coming months. American companies have relied on productivity gains to offset rising commodities costs, allowing them to hold the line on prices to protect market share.

The Fed ``will be comfortable pausing on rate hikes to allow a growth slowdown to cap'' inflation, Avery Shenfeld, a senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto, said before the report. Companies have ``room to absorb some of the latest material-cost increases without using price hikes,'' he said.

Economists forecast a 0.8 percent increase in the April producer price index after a 0.5 percent rise, based on the median of 69 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The core rate was forecast to increase 0.2 percent.

. . .

[papau]

1. 4% finished/7.3% intermed. rise year over year - so inflation is in check?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

Before seasonal adjustment, the Producer Price Index for Finished
Goods advanced 1.0 percent in April to 160.6 (1982 = 100). From April 2005
to April 2006, prices for finished goods rose 4.0 percent. Over the same
period, the finished energy goods index increased 18.0 percent, prices for
finished goods other than foods and energy moved up 1.5 percent, and the
finished consumer foods index fell 1.3 percent. For the 12 months ended
April 2006, prices for intermediate goods rose 7.3 percent, while the crude
goods index climbed 3.4 percent.

[ozymandius]

2. So everything is hunky dory - eh papau?

Do the cooks of these books thing we're fools?

[papau]

3. Think we are fools, are lazy, are themselves stupid, are controlled by RW?

There are a lot of choices - none of which make the news media economic/business reporting look any better than their media friends doing political reporting.

I wonder how these folks get jobs and why/how marketing is able to overcome such low quality in a product.

Since I believe folks today are as smart or smarter than 50 years ago, I have to assume the society has changed in some way that makes this possible. And as the Roman/Greek/Mid-East saying goes, "look for whom it helps," I look, and the only folks benefiting are the very rich and corporate. A low level fever that we always had of mis-information/bad ethics became a major disease in the early Reagan years, as far as I can tell.

[AX10]

4. So the books of been cooked again.

[NorthernSun]

5. 10.8% anually

.9% monthly equals 10.8% anually by my calculations.

[cliss]

6. I love this part -

"The Fed will be comfortable..."

Really? I wonder.