US wholesale inflation stagnated in February, helped by a decline in services costs and pointing to some relief on prices before additional tariffs were imposed by the Trump administration.
The producer price index was unchanged from a month earlier following a revised 0.6% increase in January, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.3% gain. Compared with a year earlier, the PPI was up 3.2%.
The wholesale data follow a BLS report Wednesday which showed consumer prices rose just 0.2% last month, the smallest increase since October. President Donald Trump has since announced sweeping tariffs on the country’s biggest trading partners, which are set to raise prices of imported goods in the months ahead.
Analysts pay close attention to the producer price report in part because several of its components feed into the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure — the personal consumption expenditures price index, due later this month. Those categories were largely firmer, including a 1% increase in hospital inpatient care and a 0.5% rise in portfolio management costs.
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