November 22, 2010 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Producer prices in October 2010 — stage-of-processing indexes

In October, the Producer Price Index for Finished Goods increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved up 1.2 percent in October, and the crude goods index increased 4.3 percent.

Over-the-month percent change in selected stage-of-processing price indexes, seasonally adjusted, October 2010
[Chart data]

In October, the increase in the index for finished goods can be traced to prices for finished energy goods, which moved up 3.7 percent. By contrast, the indexes for both finished goods less foods and energy and for finished consumer foods decreased, falling 0.6 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

The October rise in the intermediate goods index was broad based, with energy prices climbing 3.2 percent, the index for intermediate materials less foods and energy increasing 0.6 percent, and prices for foods and feeds moving up 1.3 percent. On a 12-month basis, the index for intermediate goods climbed 6.4 percent in October, its eleventh consecutive year-over-year increase.

For the 3 months ended in October, crude goods prices increased 6.2 percent following a 2.6-percent decline for the 3 months ended in July. In October, nearly half of the monthly advance is attributable to the index for crude energy materials, which climbed 5.4 percent.

These data are from the BLS Producer Price Index program. To learn more, see "Producer Price Indexes — October 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-1599. 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.

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