Producer price index November 2024:

A measure of wholesale prices rose more than expected in November, suggesting that progress in lowering inflation has slowed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

The producer price indexwhich measures what producers get for their products in the final stage of demand, rose 0.4% for the month, beating the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 0.2%. On the year, PPI rose 3%, the biggest advance since February 2023.

However, excluding food and energy, the core PPI rose 0.2%, in line with the forecast. Also, excluding commercial services, the increase in the PPI was only 0.1%.

In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance were 242,000 for the week ended Dec. 7, significantly higher than the 220,000 forecast and up 17,000 from the previous period.

On the inflation front, the news was mixed.

The prices of last order goods increased by 0.7% in the month. the biggest move since February of this year. About 80 percent of the move was due to a 3.1 percent increase in food prices, according to the BLS.

In the food category, chicken eggs increased by 54.6%, in line with the overall acceleration of products such as dried vegetables, fresh fruit and poultry. Retail egg prices rose 8.2% in the month and were up 37.5% from a year ago, the BLS said in a consumer price report on Wednesday.

A day after the PPI release, the BLS reported that the consumer price index, a more widely cited gauge of inflation, also rose in November, rising to 2.7% over the 12 months and up 0.3% month-on-month.

Despite the seemingly stubborn inflation situation, markets mostly expect the Federal Reserve to lower its key overnight lending rate next week. Futures market traders see a quarter-percentage-point cut as a near-certainty when the Federal Open Market Committee concludes its meeting on Wednesday.

Stock market futures they were in negative territory after the economic news. While Treasury yields were mixed rate cut probabilities next week they were still around 95%, according to the CME Group.

One reason markets expect the Fed to cut, even amid stubborn inflation, is that Fed officials are increasingly worried about the labor market. Farm payrolls have posted monthly gains since December 2020, but gains have slowed recently and Thursday reported that layoffs could increase as unemployment lingers longer.

Jobless claims were at their highest level since early October, with one-week overdue claims rising to 1.89 million. The four-week moving average of outstanding claims, which smooths out weekly volatility, rose to its highest level in just over four years.

This is the latest news. Please check back for updates.