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You’re going to need a new water cooler conversation topic: Inflation seems to be easing up.
Inflation for producers and manufacturers in the US stayed steady in September, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s a fairly good sign that consumers aren’t bearing too much of the weight of price increases. The producer price index, or PPI, measures the average price changes that producers and manufacturers experience. When those rise, consumers can see higher prices.
PPI rose 1.8% for the year in September, while staying flat month over month. Per CNBC, economists Dow Jones polled were anticipating a monthly climb of 0.1% following a 0.2% increase in August.
“Today’s PPI was a bit of a mixed bag; but overall, it should help ease any immediate concerns about reheating inflation from yesterday’s [consumer price index],” Chris Larkin, E-Trade’s managing director of trading and investing, wrote in a statement, per CNN. The consumer price index, which measures what consumers pay for goods and services, climbed 0.2% in September, and 2.4% year over year. That was its lowest rate since February 2021.
“The latest PPI and CPI data don’t disrupt the disinflation narrative and yet remind us we aren’t on a smooth glide slope to 2%,” Oren Klachkin, a markets economist at Nationwide Financial, said, referencing the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, according to CNBC.