US annual PPI at 1.7% in August, stocks edge higher

Investing.com -- S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures are up around 0.17% and 0.15%, respectively, in premarket trading on Thursday after the release of the U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) for August, which indicated a higher-than-anticipated increase in prices.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the PPI, excluding food and energy, remained unchanged in August, coming in at 2.4%, compared to the consensus estimate of 2.5%.

The data also showed that PPI month-on-month in August was 0.2%, above the estimate of 0.1%, while core PPI MoM was 0.3%, above the consensus estimate of 0.2%. Meanwhile, PPI YoY in August was 1.7%, below the consensus expectation of 1.8%.

The data suggests that while inflationary pressures have been somewhat resilient, the spike experienced in the second quarter has continued to work its way down.

On Wednesday, U.S. inflation data showed consumer prices rose by 2.5% over the 12 months to August, marking the slowest pace since February 2021. It was down from 2.9% in July.

Following Wednesday's inflation data, analysts at Citi indicated that the latest inflation figures might prompt the Fed to cut rates by 25bp rather than 50bp, while Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) said it also sees a 25bp cut.