Import Prices Show Small Increase, Export Prices Unchanged

Cross-border price pressures are flat like other inflation readings. Import prices managed only a 0.2 percent increase in October which is half the expected gain. And excluding petroleum which swung sharply higher in the month, import prices rose only 0.1 percent. The year-on-year rate for ex-petroleum import prices is only 1.4 percent.

Export prices were unchanged in October despite a 1.9 percent monthly climb in agricultural prices. The year-on-year gain for agricultural prices, at 3.5 percent, is perhaps the most favorable reading in the report.

But prices for finished goods, whether on the import or export side, remain stubbornly flat with about half of these annual readings tilted in the negative column including export prices of consumer goods which are down 0.7 percent. The lack of pressure here points to no pass-through for recent gains in petroleum costs.

There have been glimmers of wage pressures in recent months but this week's inflation readings re-establish the expansion's anomaly -- that full employment is not triggering any inflation.

Recent History Of This Indicator:
Oil prices skewed September's import & export price report sharply higher, to gains of 0.7 percent for imports and 0.8 percent for exports. Core readings, however, showed much less pressure with cross-border prices for finished goods remaining flat. Econoday's consensus for October import prices is 0.4. percent with export prices at 0.1 percent.