Figures released moments ago by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 0.7% in January after declining by 0.5% in December, exceeding expectations for a gain of about 0.4%, while the index rose on an annual basis by 6%.

The index excluding food and energy prices increased by 0.6% in January, the largest pace of growth since March 2022, while energy prices increased by 0.6%, and food prices fell by 1%.

On the other hand, manufacturing activity in Philadelphia continued to decline in February by 8.9 points, according to the companies’ response to the industrial business expectations survey, to reach -24.3 points, the sixth negative reading in a row, marking the lowest reading for the index since May 2020, as 57% of companies reported no change.

In current activity compared to 24% in January while the New Orders Index decreased by 3 points to 13.6 – The Employment Index remained positive but fell to 5.1 from 10.9.

On the other hand, the numbers of weekly unemployment benefits increased by 194 thousand applications in the last week ending February 11th, an increase of 1 thousand applications from the previous week, while expectations indicated numbers higher than 200 thousand applications.

The general index of the US dollar is rising and trading at 103.90 levels, while gold is declining and trading at 1833 dollars an ounce.