Wholesale Prices Up By 0.1 Percent
by Christina Lee on March 18th, 2009
Wholesale prices rose by 0.1 percent over the course of February – now the second noted increase in a row since a 1.9 percent decline in December.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the rise yesterday through its regular tracking of wholesale prices of crude, intermediate and finished goods, cumulatively referred to as the producer price index.
Finance and economics journalist James Picerno called the price increase paired with the 22 percent rise in new housing starts “more than just a dead cat bounce.”
“Is it safe to declare the deflation risk over? No, not yet, but it’s not too soon to start thinking about the light at the end of the tunnel, dim though it’s likely for the time being,” he wrote in his blog, The Capital Spectator.
Prices of finished consumer goods sans food and energy rose by 0.4 percent, following the 0.3 percent increase observed in January.
Within this category, prices of both household appliances and women’s, girls’ and infants’ apparel rose by 1.5 percent after smaller increases during the previous month. Meanwhile, prices of sporting goods and toys experienced the steepest declines, of 1.7 and 3.5 percent respectively.