February 19, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Producer prices in January

The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods edged up 0.1 percent in January, seasonally adjusted. This increase follows a 0.6-percent drop in December and a 0.5-percent decline in November.

[Chart data—TXT]

At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by intermediate goods manufacturers fell 0.1 percent, following a 0.8-percent decline in the prior month. The crude goods index increased 3.7 percent, after decreasing 9.6 percent in December.

From January 2001 to January 2002, prices for finished goods declined 2.6 percent.

These data are a product of the BLS Producer Price Index program. Seasonal adjustment factors have been recalculated to reflect price-movement patterns during 2001 for stage-of-processing (SOP) and commodity-grouping indexes. This routine annual recalculation may affect previously published seasonally adjusted indexes and percent changes for January 1997 through December 2001. Find out more in the "Producer Price Indexes, January 2002", news release USDL 02-87. All producer price indexes are routinely subject to revision once, 4 months after original publication, to reflect the availability of late reports and corrections by respondents.