Core producer prices in the US rise a tad less quickly than expected in October

Wholesale prices in the US rose a tad less quickly than expected last month and price pressures were easing in some chapters "at the margin", some economists said.

According to the Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, so-called final demand prices jumped at a month-on-month pace of 0.6% in October, keeping the year-on-year rate of increase at 8.6% - as expected by the consensus.

At the core level on the other hand they rose by 0.4% (consensus: 0.5%).

Yet the monthly increase in goods prices outside of food and energy was 0.5%, the smallest since February, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics pointed out.

"Core goods inflation, however, looks to be peaking. The [year-on-year] rate hit a new high in October, rising to 8.8% from 8.3%, but the three-month/three-month measure peaked in July at 12.5% annualized and has since slowed to 8.5%," Shepherdson added.

"This is not definitive, yet, but it is encouraging, at the margin. Strikingly, new car and truck prices dropped sharply in October, by 0.9% and 1.6% respectively, after big increases over the past six months or so. This is a potentially important development, given the contribution of auto prices to consumer inflation this year, but one month proves nothing."