US producer prices revised lower in December

US PRODUCER prices fell more than initially thought in December, revised government data showed on Wednesday (Feb 14).

The producer price index for final demand dropped 0.2 per cent in December instead of dipping 0.1 per cent as previously reported, annual revisions of the PPI data published by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed.

Data for October and November were unrevised to show PPI declining 0.4 per cent and slipping 0.1 per cent, respectively.

The revisions resulted from the recalculation of seasonal adjustment factors, the model used by the government to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the data.

This routine procedure, which the BLS undertakes every year, covered data from January 2019 through December 2023. Weights in the PPI basket were also updated. The year-on-year data, which is not seasonally adjusted, was unrevised. REUTERS