🇺🇸October producer prices increased 6.5% year over year and 0.3% month over month; core annual inflation reached 5.0%.

The October producer price index (PPI) increased 6.5% year over year, compared with a 6.6% forecast and a 6.3% previous reading. The annual rate therefore increased even though it came in below the reported forecast.

Headline PPI rose 0.3% month over month, below the 0.4% forecast and the 1.3% previous reading. The monthly and annual figures describe different comparison periods and should not be treated as contradictory signals.

Core PPI increased 5.0% year over year, matching both the forecast and previous reading. Its monthly increase was 0.3%, matching the forecast and down from 0.7% previously; the digest’s “core annual inflation” refers specifically to core producer prices, not consumer-price inflation.

For infrastructure-related policy context, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said data-center construction was pushing up prices and that inflation had spread into categories not driven by energy. Those are attributed assessments from a policymaker; the supplied PPI releases do not quantify data centers’ contribution to the index.