U.S. Dec PPI rose 0.3 pct

Biz.Yahoo/Reuters ^ | January 14, 2004

[Starwind]

U.S. Dec PPI rose 0.3 pct
Wednesday January 14, 8:30 am ET

   WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Labor Department monthly
producer price index (1982 equals 100, except where noted):   
.                          Seasonally Adj   Unadjusted
.                            Dec     Nov     Dec03/02
Finished Goods               0.3    -0.3       4.0
 Less Food, Energy          -0.1    -0.1       1.0
 Consumer Foods              0.2    -0.3       7.7
 Energy Goods                1.8    -1.2      11.5
 Finished Goods Index(X)   144.5   144.5       N/A
 Residential NatGas(W)      -0.9    -1.1      20.2
 Gasoline                    5.1    -4.8      14.9
 Heating Oil                 6.4    -1.6      13.6
 Tobacco Products(X)         0.2     0.1      -0.1
 Passenger Cars              0.2    -0.8       1.9
 Capital Equipment          -0.1    -0.1       0.9
 Pharmaceutical Preps        0.2    -0.1       4.1
Intermediate Goods           0.5    -0.2       3.9
 Less Food, Energy           0.1     0.2       2.1
 Manufact Materials          0.2     0.2       3.0
 Construction Materials     unch     0.5       3.0
 Intermed.Energy Goods       2.2    -2.9      10.9
Crude Goods                  2.0     0.2       18.5
 Less Food, Energy(Y)        3.4     4.3       20.8
 Food/Feedstuffs            -0.7    -0.1       24.0
 Nonfood Materials           4.0     0.4       15.0
 Energy Materials(Z)         4.3    -1.5       12.3
 Petroleum(X)                2.6    -2.3       12.3
W-1990=100
X-not seasonally adjusted. Y-excludes crude petroleum
Z-Includes crude petroleum. N/A-not available
 FORECAST:
 Reuters survey of economists forecast:
 U.S. Dec producer prices +0.2 
 U.S. Dec producer prices ex-food/energy +0.1 pct
 HISTORICAL/NOTES:
 U.S. Labor Department said the rise in the price of finished
goods on a 12-month cumulative basis of 4.0 pct was the
largest, on a calendar-year basis, since 5.7 pct in 1990.

[Starwind]

The full BLS report is at Producer Price Indexes -- December 2003

[Starwind]

Fyi...

[Nataku X]

What's up with the idiotic "seasonal adjustment" stuff? I KNOW that my food & energy bills haven't gone down. There's a gap of well over 20% between the seasonally adjusted (20% increase versus -0.X increase) in the gas & food portions.

Kinda like how the economy lost more than 200,000 jobs last month but it was somehow "seasonally adjusted" to a gain of 1000 jobs. Unless someone can provide me with a good explanation for how seasonal adjustment figures are made, I'm calling the government a liar.

[BohDaThone]

The "unadjusted" is this december against last december (it covers a whole year) that is up 20%. The "adjusted" numbers are for one month (dec. v. nov in the first column; then nov v. oct. in the second column). The adjustments are to try to compensate, for example, for fruit always costing a lot more in the winter than summer, or electricity costing more in the summer, usually.

Read this way, you simply see that there hasn't been much movement either way in the last 2 months. Also, remember, these are PRODUCER prices. The Consumer index is a separate set of statistics.

[Nataku X]

Makes sense re: seasonal adjustment, thanks--although a 20% jump in necessities over an year is still a worrisome thing...

[BohDaThone]

But note that the 20% jump is in one item, Residential natural gas -- that is up, largely as a result of huge increases in natural gas use for electricity -- NO Nukes, you know and No coal, and no , , , but it has saved the rest of the country, and even California, from supply shortages of electricity. The increases in "crude goods" at the bottom of the table are also from very depressed levels. The real price of a basket of raw commodities had been about 45% of what it was in 1967 -- that has now risen to about 55% of what it was in 1967!