Making Financial Headlines · Page 8
Producer Prices Arrive Above the Expected Temperature
· New York time
US wholesale prices rose 6.3% annually in September, CNBC reports, compared with a 5.5% annual increase expected in the Dow Jones consensus. The gap put the reported result 0.8 percentage points above that forecast and renewed attention to price pressure before goods reach consumers. Producer inflation measures a different stage of the economy from household shopping bills. Businesses can respond to costs in different ways, so the figure is important without functioning as a receipt mailed backward from the future. For forecasters, the result illustrates an occupational hazard: expectations must be published before the number arrives. The actual figure then enters the room with the confidence of somebody who has already seen the answer sheet and would like everyone to admire the arithmetic.
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