PPI lands at 08:30 ET, monthly, near CPI. It sits upstream of consumer prices — and it is a weaker signal than most people treat it as.
The Producer Price Index tracks prices received by domestic producers — what goods and services cost at the wholesale or factory gate, before they reach a consumer.
PPI is treated as a partial leading indicator for CPI. Higher input costs eventually reach consumer prices, so a surprise here shifts expectations for next month's consumer print — and therefore the rate path and real yields.
Treating it as a reliable CPI forecast.
Pass-through from producer to consumer prices is incomplete and slow. Producers absorb margin, substitute inputs, or pass costs through over quarters rather than weeks. PPI is a weaker signal than CPI, and market reaction is correspondingly smaller and less consistent.
When PPI lands the same week as CPI, the second release usually dominates — the first is often faded once the second confirms or contradicts it.
Core PPI, excluding food and energy, carries the same reasoning as Core CPI and is the more policy-relevant cut.