FREEDOM ✝️ 🇺🇸

🇺🇸 U.S. producer inflation just hit its HIGHEST annual rate since November 2022. But the headline hides an important detail. Producer prices rose 6.5% over the past year, up from 6.3% in September. The monthly increase slowed sharply, from 1.4% to 0.3%, below the 0.4% economists expected. That sounds encouraging. Yet strip out food, energy AND trade services, and prices still climbed 0.5% in October, matching September's increase. Energy prices actually fell 0.1% on the month, though they are still up 37% on the year. This month's pressure wasn't simply another jump in fuel costs. Meanwhile, final-demand goods prices are up 10.2% over the past year, the most since October 2022. To put that into perspective: A 15-gallon fill-up at today's $3.995 national average costs $59.93. A year ago, at $3.056, the same tank cost $45.84. Same tank. About $14 more every fill-up, or roughly $730 a year at one a week. For businesses facing higher costs, the choice is uncomfortable: absorb the hit to margins, raise prices, or cut elsewhere. Higher producer prices don't translate one-for-one into consumer prices. But they show why one cooler headline doesn't settle the inflation problem. The monthly pace slowed. The pressure beneath it remains.