WASHINGTON, Sept 12 - Rising food and energy costs pushed U.S. wholesale prices up in August, but outside those volatile areas price pressures were largely contained, the government said on Friday. The Producer Price Index, which measures prices received by farms, factories and refineries, rose 0.4 percent in August after a 0.1 percent gain a month earlier, the Labor Department said. Excluding often-volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core PPI advanced a mild 0.1 percent. The report was largely in line with expectations in financial markets, with the core rate matching consensus forecasts and the overall index just a tick higher.
Over the past 12 months, producer prices have risen 3.4 percent, largely reflecting sharp gains in energy and food costs. Excluding food and energy, prices at the finished goods level have risen only 0.4 percent from year-ago levels, underscoring the lack of inflationary pressures in the economy. The report painted a mixed picture of cost pressures further back in the production pipeline. At the intermediate goods level, prices rose 0.5 percent last month but just 0.1 percent excluding food and energy. At the crude goods level, a sharp plunge in energy prices - reflecting a 13.1 percent drop in natural gas prices -- pulled costs down a sharp 1.4 percent, but core crude goods prices shot up 3.7 percent, the biggest gain since June 1979.//