Summary of July PPI, August 13, 2026
- Producer prices were unchanged in July; the 12-month rate fell to 4.7 percent from 5.5.
- Producer core inflation — excluding foods, energy and trade margins — fell to 4.7 percent over 12 months from 5.0, but is running 5.1 percent annualized over three.
- BLS’s consumer-facing cut of the producer core fell to 4.3 percent from 4.7, against a consumer core of 2.5 percent.
Producer prices have not risen in two months. June’s 0.1 percent decline was first reported as 0.3.
Half of freight’s slowdown is last July leaving the window
Transportation and warehousing prices fell 1.8 percent in July, truck freight by the same, and their 12-month rate dropped from 13.5 percent to 10.0. Freight is 7 percent of the producer core’s weight, so that took about 0.25 points off a core rate that fell 0.35 points in all.
A little over half of that 3.5-point drop is July’s own decline. The rest is a strong July 2025 — freight rose 1.4 percent that month — leaving the window.
Portfolio fees led the month’s rise, on last quarter’s rally
The core rose 0.4 percent, 0.35 before rounding. Services outside trade and freight, 63 percent of its weight, contributed more than the whole of it, because freight subtracted 0.13 points. BLS names portfolio management the largest single contributor: up 6.5 percent in July, 22.5 percent over 12 months. BLS publishes no weight for that line, so how much of the 0.4 percent it carries cannot be computed here.
Portfolio management is a fee charged against the value of assets under management, and its largest moves land in the first month of a quarter. Across 31 quarters since late 2018 that move has tracked the prior quarter’s S&P 500 closely (r-squared 0.83). The S&P rose 14.9 percent between March 31 and June 30; the relationship implies a 6.1 percent fee increase, and the index rose 6.5.
Construction added another 0.08 points. It moves only in January, April, July and October; July’s 2.2 percent was its largest quarterly repricing since October 2022, and the only component of the core whose annual rate rose.
Jet fuel fell 15 percent, consumer airfares rose
The July CPI note left open whether falling fuel would reach airfares. Jet fuel fell 15.2 percent in July and the fares airlines receive fell 3.4 percent, taking their 12-month rate from 16.6 percent to 11.9. Consumer airfares rose 2.2 percent and are up 25.5 percent over the year.
Neither release explains the gap, which ran 10 points the other way in mid-2025. If consumer airfares slow by the October report while jet fuel keeps falling, fuel is what drove them; if they do not, it is not.
Consumer-facing producer prices fell to 4.3 percent
The consumer-facing cut of the producer core — the part that prices at a household counter — is down from 4.7, against a consumer core of 2.5 percent. That gap narrowed from 2.2 points to 1.8, entirely because the producer side came down.
Two things cut the other way: producer services one stage back are still running 5.1 percent over 12 months, and both ISM cost gauges were above 70 in July. What would change this read is the core’s three-month pace holding above 5 percent through the October report while the consumer-facing cut stops falling.
Sources: BLS Producer Price Indexes — July 2026 (USDL 26-1380), the permanent archived copy, which carries the release text, Tables A–D and Table 1’s percent changes and relative-importance weights, plus Table 2’s commodity detail. Series histories and every monthly, three-month and 12-month rate come from the BLS PPI series WPSFD4, WPSFD49116, WPSFD422, WPSFD43, WPSFD49511, WPSID51–54, WPU3012, WPU3022 and WPU4021. S&P 500 quarter-end closes: S&P Dow Jones Indices, via the St. Louis Fed. Consumer figures: BLS Consumer Price Index — July 2026 (USDL-26-1378). Cost gauges: the GeoMean July ISM notes. Companion: the GeoMean July CPI note. Verified figures, flat files, the weight decomposition and the chart spec are archived with this piece. Monthly changes are seasonally adjusted; 12-month changes are not. Notes: March–June 2026 figures reflect this release’s revisions — June final demand is restated from −0.3 to −0.1 percent, June’s producer core 12-month rate from 5.1 to 5.0, and BLS’s consumer-facing core from 4.8 to 4.7, superseding the figures in June’s producer note. No consensus forecast for this release could be traced to a citable source, so no beat-or-miss comparison is made.