WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) – U.S. import prices were unexpectedly unchanged in September as high costs for consumer goods, excluding motor vehicles, were offset by cheaper \u200benergy products.<\/p>\n
The flat reading in import prices reported by the Labor Department’s \u200cBureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday followed a downwardly revised 0.1% gain in August. Economists polled by Reuters \u200chad forecast import prices, which exclude tariffs, rising 0.1% after a previously reported 0.3% advance in August.<\/p>\n
In the 12 months through September, import prices increased 0.3%. That was the first year-on-year rise since March and followed a 0.1% dip in August.<\/p>\n
The report was delayed by \u2060a record 43-day shutdown of \u200cthe government. The pass-through from tariffs to consumer prices has so far been modest, with economists saying businesses were opting to absorb \u200dthe duties.<\/p>\n
Economists, however, continue to expect an acceleration in the pass-through pace, arguing that a continued decline in margins at businesses was unsustainable and could hamper spending on capital and labor. The government \u200blast week reported a surge in producer prices for goods in September, mostly driven \u200cby higher food and energy costs.<\/p>\n
Imported fuel prices dropped 1.5% in September after easing 0.5% in August. Natural gas prices declined 3.0%. Food prices decreased 0.8%. Excluding fuels and food, import prices rose 0.3%. Core import prices increased by the same margin in August. In the 12 months through September, they advanced 0.8%.<\/p>\n
That partly reflects dollar weakness against \u2060the currencies of the main U.S. trade partners. \u200bThe trade-weighted dollar is down about 5.6% this year.<\/p>\n
Federal \u200bReserve officials will meet next week to decide on interest rates. As many as five of the 12 voting policymakers on the central \u200dbank’s rate-setting Federal Open \u2060Market Committee have voiced opposition to or skepticism about cutting rates further, while a core of three members of the Washington-based Board of Governors wants rates \u2060to fall.<\/p>\n
Prices for imported consumer goods excluding motor vehicles increased 0.4%, matching August’s rise. Imported capital goods prices \u200cfell 0.2% while those for motor vehicles, parts and engines were unchanged.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200cby Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) – U.S. import prices were unexpectedly unchanged in September as high costs for consumer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8644,45,49,48,143209,25204,46,44080,143208,12522,79418,29584],"class_list":["post-323511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bureau-of-labor-statistics","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-capital-goods","tag-consumer-goods","tag-economy","tag-food-prices","tag-import-prices","tag-labor-department","tag-motor-vehicles","tag-natural-gas-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}