Courtesy of Mish.
Export Prices Collapse Most Since July 2009
Today’s Import/Export report will have alarm bells ringing in the heads of various Fed members.
Month over month, export prices fell 1.4% with the Bloomberg Consensus opinion at -0.4%. The decline was outside the range of any estimate.
Economists’ estimates ranged from -1% to +0.1%.
Significant declines sweep nearly all categories of the import & export price report pointing squarely to a deepening of cross-border deflationary pressures. Import prices fell 1.8 percent in August, slightly more than expected, while export prices fell 1.4 percent which is substantially more than expected. The monthly drops for both are the steepest since the oil-price rout of January.
Petroleum pulled down the import side but even when excluding petroleum, prices fell 0.4 percent. Export prices were hit by lower prices for industrial supplies, foods-feeds-beverages, and also agricultural products. And finished goods, whether on the import or export side, show a run of minus signs for both the monthly readings and the year-on-year readings.
Year-on-year rates are severe, at minus 11.4 percent for total imports, which is the lowest since September 2009, and minus 7.0 percent for exports which is the lowest since July 2009.
Let’s dive into the BLS report on U.S. Import and Export Prices for more details and charts.
Import Prices
click on any chart for sharper image
Export Prices
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