Washington, October 15--Producer prices edged up just 0.1 percent in September, held back by a big energy-price drop, but the cost of non-energy items picked up steam, a government report showed on Friday.
Prices for finished energy goods tumbled 0.9 percent last month, the Labor Department said, while food costs inched ahead just 0.1 percent.
But the department's producer price index, a gauge of prices received by farms, factories and refineries, showed that the cost of goods excluding food and energy rose 0.3 percent.
Economists had been expecting both the overall and so-called core readings on producer prices to gain just 0.1 percent.
While crude oil prices climbed above $50 a barrel last month, economists said the increase probably came too late to be reflected in the prices of finished goods and could herald a larger producer-price gain this month. U.S. light crude prices hit an all-time high of $54.88 a barrel on Thursday.
The department said car prices, which had dropped a sharp 1.2 percent in August, jumped 1.1 percent last month. Prices for communication equipment rose 0.7 percent.
The drop in the cost of energy reflected a 7.4 percent plunge in the price of liquefied petroleum gas, a 2.3 percent drop in natural gas prices and a 2.7 percent decline in heating oil. Gasoline prices, however, climbed 0.7 percent.
