WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. producer prices posted a record annual increase in November as supply constraints persisted, increasing pressure on the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy, the U.S. Labor Department reported on Tuesday.
The producer price index (PPI) for final demand rose 9.6 percent in November from a year earlier, the largest advance since 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010, the department said.
Excluding the volatile food, energy and trade services components, the index rose 6.9 percent over the same period, the biggest annual increase since August 2014, according to the department.
The surge in producer prices came after the department reported last week that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 6.8 percent in November from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace in almost 40 years.
The inflation data reinforced market expectations that the Fed will announce a faster pace of tapering asset purchases after concluding the two-day policy meeting on Wednesday.
The Fed began last month to reduce its monthly asset purchase program of 120 billion U.S. dollars by 15 billion dollars. At this pace, the Fed would end its asset purchases by June next year. But some Fed officials and economists have urged the central bank to accelerate the pace of tapering to give more leeway to raise rates sooner amid inflation pressures.
More than half of the economists in a Bloomberg survey released Monday expected the Fed to double the pace of tapering to 30 billion dollars a month, starting in January and wrapping up in March.
Latest comments