Producer costs are those paid by businesses and are often passed on to customers. The PPI report follows Wednesday’s consumer price index for January that saw inflation rise by 0.5% and 3% for the year.

The core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, ticked up 0.3% in January, matching expectations and down from an updated 0.4% rise in December. The subindex was up 3.6% from

The arguably more important measure of core inflation, which excludes price changes in the often volatile food and energy categories, increased 3.3% year-over-year in January, higher than forecasts of 3.1%. And core prices rose 0.4% from December to January, compared to estimates of 0.3%.