Wholesale Prices

Wholesale prices posted their biggest monthly gain in four years in August, a jump that was bigger than economists expected and big enough to send stock and bond markets into a short-term tailspin.The Labor Department reported yesterday a surprisingly steep 0.6 percent advance in the producer price index, following a strong increase of 0.5 percent in the previous month.Leading Maryland economists said the news was bad for August, but said the one-month gain does not change a basically positive inflation picture.

Shopping for household energy has revived in Maryland, thanks to a drop in wholesale prices, frustration about BGE's winter heating bills and worries about even higher electricity prices to come. Residential users who dump BGE's or Pepco's standard electricity package could save $20 a month this summer by buying energy instead from merchants such as Washington Gas Energy Services or a program being rolled out by several chambers of commerce. Natural gas prices have plunged, too. (I'll write more about them in Wednesday's paper.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks gained yesterday after bonds rallied when a government report showed wholesale prices fell in April.The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 23.80, to 3,652.84, after rallying as much as 34.80 in the morning, fed by gains in Philip Morris Cos., AlliedSignal Inc. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. Yields on the government's benchmark 30-year bond fell to 7.56 percent from 7.60 percent.Stocks surged when the Labor Department released the producer price index for April, which showed a decline of 0.1 percent in wholesale prices, instead of the expected 0.2 percent increase.

Let's say there's a potential shortage of eggs in the future and you are a federal agency in charge of making sure there are enough to go around. You can't order farmers to buy more laying hens, but you can write rules that result in people paying more for eggs so farmers will have money to expand. But what if you end up with the same number of hens? What if all you accomplish is to pad the wallets of farmers? That's essentially the question raised last week by Maryland's Public Service Commission and a broad coalition of state regulators and consumer advocates with regard to electricity costs.

MOSCOW -- Using his new powers for the first time to move toward a market economy, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev ordered yesterday that wholesale prices for many goods next year be negotiated between buyer and seller rather than set by the state.The presidential decree, unveiled on the evening television news, suggested that Mr. Gorbachev has decided to implement economic change unilaterally without waiting for an indecisive parliament to approve an economic plan."There are certain key issues today on which we as a country and as an economy cannot wait until a program is completely worked out," said Soviet Finance Minister Valentin S. Pavlov, discussing the decree in a televised interview.

Wholesale prices surged at a faster pace than consumer prices last month, the government reported yesterday, indicating that businesses are not passing on the full brunt of the energy price spike to customers. The Producer Price Index, which measures the prices received by producers of goods and services, jumped 1.9 percent in September, as energy costs rose 7.1 percent, the Labor Department reported. It was the biggest monthly increase since January 1990, when prices also increased 1.9 percent.

WASHINGTON -- Wholesale prices remained flat in May, calming fears that inflationary pressures are building in the economy and easing expectations that the Federal Reserve might feel compelled to raise interest rates to keep prices in check.With both food and energy wholesale costs subsiding after big advances earlier this year, the Labor Department's Producer Price Index -- which measures inflationary pressures before they reach the consumer -- was unchanged in May. The respite followed a 0.6 percent rise in April, the biggest monthly gain in 2 1/2 years, and a steep 0.4 percent increase in March.

WASHINGTON - An index of the U.S. economy's likely performance over the next three to six months rose in May, initial jobless claims fell last week and wholesale prices rose last month, government and private reports showed yesterday. The Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators, boosted by an increase in factory hours and a rise in the money supply, rose 0.5 percent after a 0.1 percent rise in April. The gauge has advanced in all but one of the past 14 months. The Labor Department also reported yesterday that the Producer Price Index rose 0.8 percent in May, the most in a year.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks, led by phone, oil and auto issues, rose for a second day as an unexpected drop in August wholesale prices drove long-term interest rates lower, investors and analysts said yesterday."

An unexpected surge in wholesale prices last month, the latest in a string of higher price reports, left many economists and investors wondering whether the inflation genie was starting to slip out of the bottle.Producer prices leaped 0.6 percent in April, the Labor Department reported yesterday. That jump -- the biggest in 2 1/2 years and significantly larger than most forecasters had expected -- unsettled everyone from bond investors to homeowners who hadn't gotten around to refinancing their mortgages and worry that an uptick in inflation could push interest rates higher.

Baltimore Gas & Electric's residential customers will pay an estimated 5.5 percent more for electricity starting in June, largely as a result of federal rules that are driving wholesale energy prices higher, state officials and industry experts said yesterday. The increase will add about $100 to the average customer's annual utility bill, although the amount will vary depending on usage, the state Public Service Commission said. When combined with increases imposed since rate caps expired in 2006, BGE customers will be paying 85 percent more for electricity than they were before the General Assembly approved deregulation in 1999.

Gov. Martin O'Malley asked the Public Service Commission yesterday to investigate whether the wholesale rates for electricity in Maryland exceed federal standards for reasonableness, echoing an action in Illinois that helped lead to a $1 billion rate rebate for customers there. O'Malley said in his letter to PSC Chairman Steven B. Larsen that it is not enough for the state's utilities to show that they followed Maryland's regulatory procedures when they participated in auctions for power supplies.

Output from the nation's mines, factories and utilities displayed unexpected strength last month, reflecting a solid upturn in manufacturing activity, the government reported yesterday. The Federal Reserve's statistical arm said industrial production rose in December by 0.4 percent, well above the 0.1 percent most experts had been forecasting. The latest reading also sharply contrasted the 0.1 percent declines that such production showed in October and November as the economy continued to lose momentum.

WASHINGTON -- Just when it appeared that inflation was under control, it showed its old stubborn self in a government report yesterday. The Producer Price Index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, rose 2 percent in November over October, the most in 32 years, the Labor Department said. Higher prices for commodities, such as gasoline, and motor vehicles led the upward push. The rise was four times higher than financial markets expected and may have been an aberration. While many analysts said the rate of wholesale inflation likely would subside in the months ahead, it served as a warning that keeping the lid on rising prices could be more troublesome than widely believed.

In July, when the first part of the Baltimore Gas and Electric rate increase kicked in, I suggested that electricity prices would drop and counseled households to wait until fall before switching electric-generation suppliers. Fall is here. While consumer kilowatt prices haven't declined as far as wholesale prices, savings can be had. The time to shop is now. For the first time since electricity deregulation kicked in six years ago, it makes economic sense for Baltimore-area households to ditch BGE's standard product and buy kilowatts from a third-party supplier.

Look what happened to wholesale electricity costs when you weren't looking. They plunged, and now municipal leaders are interested in possibly ditching Baltimore Gas and Electric's standard service to buy cheaper juice for their residents on the open market. "It might be able to provide a cost savings to citizens and to cities," says Annapolis City Administrator Robert Agee. Yesterday I went shopping for kilowatts on Annapolis' behalf. I found that the city's 15,000 homes could lock in 2007 prices for almost 15 percent less (off their total electric bill)

Most businesses seem to be absorbing higher energy costs in an effort to keep prices down and stay competitive, economists said yesterday after the latest economic report showed few signs of inflation. The report on the producer price index, which is considered an early indicator of inflation, showed that wholesale prices were unchanged in June. After Thursday's report on consumer prices, which were flat in the month, the price index offered another indication that inflation had been kept in check in June.

WASHINGTON -- A sharper-than-expected decline in industrial production in January was reported by the government yesterday, casting a pall over a glimmer of economic recovery reported just 24 hours earlier.The 0.9 percent drop in January production was deeper and wider than the markets had expected, based on the already-known poor employment figures. Economists expected a January production decline of around 0.5 percent, mainly because of the slumping auto industry.Yesterday's report was particularly disappointing, coming as it did just one day after reports that retail sales rose last month and auto sales improved early this month.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's gamble that he can suspend interest rate increases on the chance inflation will recede is showing signs of paying off. Economic figures are breaking Bernanke's way for the first time since he took the central bank's helm in February. A measure of wholesale prices unexpectedly fell last month and one gauge of consumer inflation eased, according to Labor Department numbers reported this week. Reports of slowing sales from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Home Depot Inc. also provided evidence backing the Fed's forecast of a slowing economic expansion.

Wholesale prices surged at a faster pace than consumer prices last month, the government reported yesterday, indicating that businesses are not passing on the full brunt of the energy price spike to customers. The Producer Price Index, which measures the prices received by producers of goods and services, jumped 1.9 percent in September, as energy costs rose 7.1 percent, the Labor Department reported. It was the biggest monthly increase since January 1990, when prices also increased 1.9 percent.