Gold prices are pretty stable right now after the latest report shows U.S. producer prices didn’t change much last month.
Here’s the deal: the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures how much producers are charging for their goods, went up by 0.2% in October. This was expected by most economists, especially since it had only gone up 0.1% in September.
Looking at the bigger picture, wholesale inflation (the yearly rise in producer prices) grew by 2.4% in the past year. This was a bit higher than what people predicted at 2.3% and also up from September’s 1.9%. When you focus on core PPI—leaving out the usual ups and downs of food and energy prices—it rose by 0.3% in October, just as predicted. The yearly core PPI came in at 3.1%, also a little above expectations.
After this news dropped around 8:30 am EDT, gold prices stayed in their usual trading range. Last we checked, spot gold was trading at $2,554.06, down 0.73% for the day.
Why does this all matter? PPI is often seen as a hint of where inflation might be heading, since producers pass their costs onto customers. Some experts think that if producer prices keep dropping along with better CPI inflation numbers, the Federal Reserve might feel ready to ease up on interest rates at future meetings. And that could be good news for gold’s long-term value.