Wholesale prices were flat in February providing some more welcome news on inflation amid tariff fears, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

The producer price index, considered a leading indicator for pipeline inflation pressures, showed no gain for the month after jumping an upwardly revised 0.6% in January, seasonally adjusted figures showed. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% increase.

Excluding food and energy, core PPI decreased 0.1%, also against an estimate for a 0.3% rise and the first negative reading since July. Core prices excluding trade services showed a gain of 0.2%, also below a 0.3% estimate.

Stock market futures pared losses following the report while Treasury yields remained higher.

The report comes a day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index rose 0.2% for February, putting the headline inflation rate at 2.8%, a slight easing from January and some encouraging news at a time when markets are concerned over the impact that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will have on costs.

Whereas the CPI measures what consumers pay at the register for goods and services, the PPI is a gauge of final demand prices that producers get for their products.

Federal Reserve officials more closely rely on a Commerce Department inflation measure that will be released later this month, though the PPI and CPI figures feed into that report.

On a year-over-year basis, headline producer prices increased 3.2%, well ahead of the Fed’s 2% goal though below the 3.7% pace in January. The core PPI was up 3.4% in February, down 0.4 percentage point from January.

Markets are assigning near 100% odds that the Fed again will stay on hold when it’s two-day policy meeting concludes next Wednesday.

Fed officials have said repeatedly that they are taking a cautious approach, particularly when it comes to Trump’s fiscal and trade policies. Current market expectations are for the central bank to cut rates next in June and follow up with the equivalent of two more quarter percentage point reductions before the end of the year.

A 0.2% drop in services prices offset a 0.3% increase in goods. Two-thirds of the rise in goods came due to a 53.6% surge in chicken egg prices, the BLS said. Eggs have soared in part because of avian flu that has hit supplies, though there is some evidence that prices have eased in March as outbreaks have slowed.

On the services side, more than 40% of the decline came from a 1.4% decrease in margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling.

Foot on ‘debt brake’ pedal

February’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed inflation pressures eased in February, calming some fears about the health of the US economy during a rocky few weeks for markets.

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 2.8% over the prior year in February, below January’s 3% annual gain and ahead of economist expectations of a 2.9% annual increase. The index rose 0.2% over the previous month, a deceleration from the 0.5% increase in January and a beat compared to economists’ estimates of a 0.3% monthly uptick.

On a “core” basis, which strips out the more volatile costs of food and gas, prices in February climbed 0.2% over the prior month, lower than January’s 0.4% monthly gain, and 3.1% over last year — the lowest yearly increase in core CPI since April 2021.

This also marked a downtick from the 3.3% core price increases seen in the prior-month period and was ahead of Bloomberg consensus estimates. It was the first time since July that both headline and core CPI showed a deceleration in price growth.

“Today’s inflation report brings some much-needed relief for equity markets, averting immediate concerns around stagflation and giving the Fed space to cut policy rates in the coming months if economic data continue to deteriorate,” Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said in response to the data.

“Certainly, with extraordinarily elevated policy uncertainty weighing on sentiment, retail companies beginning to sound warning bells around consumer spending, and recession concerns spiking, there is a strong likelihood that the Fed put will need to come into play relatively soon.”

Shelter moderates, gas prices decrease

Core inflation has remained stubbornly elevated due to sticky costs for shelter and services like insurance and medical care. But shelter did show further signs of easing in February, rising 4.2% on an annual basis, the smallest 12-month increase since December 2021.

On a month-over-month basis, the shelter index increased 0.3% compared to a 0.4% uptick in January. Similarly, the index for rent and owners’ equivalent rent (OER) each rose 0.3% over the prior month. Owners’ equivalent rent is the hypothetical rent a homeowner would pay for the same property.

“Housing inflation is historically the ‘stickiest’ component of inflation, meaning it takes longer to buck price trends,” Gargi Chaudhuri, chief investment and portfolio strategist at BlackRock, wrote in a note to clients. “The recent trend in housing prices keeps us optimistic on the future trajectory of inflation.”

Meanwhile, the energy index rose 0.2% month over month after jumping 1.1% in January. On a yearly basis, the energy index was down 0.2%, dragged down by gas prices, which dropped dropped 1% after a nearly 2% increase the previous month.

Coupled with the downtick in gas prices, a 4% decrease in the index for airline fares also helped ease last month’s headline figure.

Notably, food prices showed some signs of deceleration after a few sticky readings, rising 0.2% last month after a 0.5% jump in January. Egg prices, however, continued to surge — up another 10.4% after a 15.2% upswing to kick off the year, largely due to the bird flu impacting supply. On a yearly basis, egg prices have climbed 58.8% with economists warning more pain likely lies ahead.

“In 2015, bird flu caused a spike in egg prices that lasted for several months so we should expect egg prices to stay elevated in the near term,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial.

Other indexes that increased over the month include medical care, used cars and trucks, household furnishings and operations, recreation, apparel, and personal care, according to the BLS.

PARIS/CHICAGO (Reuters) -Makers of goods from sportswear to luxury cars and chemicals painted a gloomy picture on Wednesday of consumer and industrial health, hitting share prices and adding to concerns about the damage from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

Increased tariffs on all U.S. steel and aluminium imports took effect on Wednesday, as Trump stepped up his campaign to reorder global trade in favour of the United States. Europe and Canada swiftly retaliated.

Trump’s plans for tariffs – and their back-and-forth implementation since he took office in January – have upended industries from cars to energy and unnerved businesses and investors. Worries that rising costs will reignite inflation, and that souring consumer sentiment could herald a U.S. recession, have caused stock markets to plunge.

At a grains conference on Tuesday in Carlsbad, California, news of Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada drew groans from the room of corporate agriculture executives, grain processors and traders. The whipsaw pace of policy changes that affect their industry has made the last six weeks seem much longer, many told Reuters.

“Nearly everyone in the economy is struggling to comprehend wild swings in Washington policies, and their implications for everyday decisions,” said Stephen Dover, chief market strategist at asset manager Franklin Templeton.

The constant flip-flopping over tariffs is paralysing industries. Automakers, for example, are unable to plan while there is a threat of 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, or Europe.

“No reasonable auto executive can make such investments if the expected returns can be wiped out at the stroke of a pen,” Dover said.

Germany’s Porsche said on Wednesday it was assessing how it could pass on to consumers the cost of possible tariffs, without pressuring its margins, implying a price hike.

“For now, we are hoping there are solutions that will lead to a sensible tariff regime between regions,” Porsche CFO Jochen Breckner said on a press call.

Several automakers are doubling down on plans to produce more cars in the U.S. to escape the tariffs, but analysts said car prices are likely to increase because auto parts suppliers whose supply chains are not as localized as the car companies will be hurt.

Two major South Korean steelmakers said they were considering options including possible investment in operations in the United States as the metals tariffs came into force.

Canada’s Algoma Steel paused exports of steel from Canada to the United States, and its CEO Michael Garcia called the tariffs “very concerning.”

‘CONFUSING, INSCRUTABLE’

Speaking on French television hours before the aluminium tariffs came into force, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury warned of a trade “conflagration” as the world descends into tit-for-tat measures.

“Some of my suppliers can be affected and we are starting to see some disruption,” he said, adding, “We are in a trade war and when a trade war begins, it tends to sustain itself and feed itself.”

So far the aerospace industry has not seen a significant direct impact but many of its suppliers are in Mexico, Canada and China, which have been targeted by earlier duties or tariff warnings.

It can feel like there isn’t much that Democrats and Republicans agree upon these days. The political gridlock makes it tough for either side to make important changes, like finding a way to address Social Security’s looming insolvency. That’s worrisome if you depend heavily on your benefits. Right now, all we know is that Social Security will look different in a decade. What that means is anyone’s guess.

Among individual citizens, though, finding agreement hasn’t been as difficult. A recent National Association of Social Insurance (NASI) survey found that members of both political camps — and Independents, too — would be happy with the following two Social Security-sustaining changes.

1. Increasing or eliminating the Social Security payroll tax cap

Currently, you only pay Social Security payroll taxes — 12.4% split evenly between employee and employer — on the first $176,100 you earn this year. This cap receives an annual adjustment for inflation. It’s high enough that the majority of Americans pay these taxes on all of their income. But that’s not true for the wealthy.

Many of America’s millionaires and billionaires only pay Social Security taxes on a fraction of their income. That doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially since Social Security is in dire need of funding. Without changes, the program will face benefit cuts in less than a decade.

The NASI survey looked at two Social Security proposals concerning the payroll tax cap: raising it to $400,000 or eliminating it entirely. Both would cause the wealthy to pay considerably more into the program, though research suggests that neither solution would be enough to completely eliminate the program’s funding shortfall.

The survey found that Democrats, Republicans and Independents viewed these proposals favorably. Democrats were slightly more likely than Republicans to favor these moves. But the difference was only a few percentage points.

Some in government have floated versions of this idea in the past, but none have gained any traction. It’s a strategy that’s likely to continue to come up as the government seeks a bipartisan solution to Social Security’s funding crisis.

2. Raising the Social Security payroll tax rate slightly

The government will likely have to raise the Social Security payroll tax rate to increase the program’s funding. The latest Social Security Trustees Report suggests an increase of more than 4 percentage points could be necessary if the government delays taking action. But a smaller increase could work if paired with other solutions, like increasing the payroll tax cap.

The NASI survey looked at a modest tax increase — just 2 percentage points. Since employees and employers split the tax, this would only raise the average worker’s taxes by 1 percentage point. For someone earning $50,000 per year, that would be an extra $42 per month.

Though no tax increase would be ideal, the idea of a small increase appears agreeable to most Americans. Here, too, Democrats showed a stronger tendency to favor this proposal, but more than half the Republicans surveyed also suggested they would favor this change.

Only time will tell

There’s no indication the government plans to make any long-term Social Security reforms in the near future. That decision will likely happen months, if not years, from now. In the meantime, if you feel strongly about how the government should approach this issue, reach out to your Congressional representatives to make your feelings known.

If you receive more Social Security benefits than you are owed, you may face a 100% default withholding rate from your monthly checks once a new policy goes into effect.

The change announced last week by the Social Security Administration marks a reversal from a 10% default withholding rate that was put in place last year after some beneficiaries received letters demanding immediate repayments for sums that were sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.

The discrepancy — called overpayments — happens when Social Security beneficiaries receive more money than they are owed.

The erroneous payment amounts may occur when beneficiaries fail to report to the Social Security Administration changes in their circumstances that may affect their benefits, according to a 2024 Congressional Research Service report. Overpayments can also happen if the agency does not process the information promptly or due to errors in the way data was entered, how a policy was applied or in the administrative process, according to the report.

New overpayment policy goes into effect March 27

Health insurers’ use of AI is bringing a new level of concern to the burdensome payer cost-control practice known as prior authorization. In a recently released AMA survey (PDF), 61% of physicians said they fear that payers’ use of unregulated AI is increasing prior authorization denials, a practice that will override good medical judgment and exacerbate patient harm. “Emerging evidence shows that insurers use automated decision-making systems to create systematic batch denials with little or no human review, placing barriers between patients and necessary medical care,” said AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, reacting to the survey results. Physicians should be able to make medical decisions with their patients without interference from unregulated and unsupervised AI technology, said Dr. Scott. The AMA is fighting by challenging insurance companies to eliminate care delays, patient harms and practice hassles. Health plans use prior authorization to control costs, requiring advance approval to obtain a prescription medication or medical service for a patient. Physicians and patients alike view this as a burdensome practice that affects care delivery, clinical outcomes and productivity in physician offices. Spending rises under this practice due to additional office visits, unanticipated hospital stays, and out-of-pocket costs for treatment. In this most recent nationwide survey of 1,000 practicing physicians—400 working in primary care, the remainder in other physician specialties—82% reported that prior authorization sometimes leads to patients abandoning treatment. Over 90% said prior authorization delays care. AI tools have been accused of producing high rates of care denial, in some cases 16 times higher than is typical, according to figures from a 2024 Senate committee report cited in the AMA’s news release. “Using AI-enabled tools to automatically deny more and more needed care is not the reform of prior authorization physicians and patients are calling for,” said Dr. Scott. Other AMA surveys underscore physician concerns about some misuses of health care AI. Results released early in February (PDF) found that 49% of physicians ranked oversight of payers’ use of AI in medical necessity determinations among the top three priorities for regulatory action. To address these concerns, the AMA House of Delegates recently adopted policy supporting advocacy to help ensure that technology is an asset to physicians and not a burden. Based on this policy, the AMA has developed advocacy principles (PDF) that address the development, deployment and use of health care AI, with particular emphasis on:

• Health care AI oversight.
• When and what to disclose to advance AI transparency.
• Generative AI policies and governance.
• Physician liability for use of AI-enabled technologies.
• AI data privacy and cybersecurity.
• Payer use of AI and automated decision-making systems.

Dire consequences for patient care

AI concerns notwithstanding, physicians continue to report that prior authorization impedes delivery of necessary medical treatments, jeopardizes quality care and harms patients. More than nine in 10 physicians—94%—reported that prior authorization had a negative impact on clinical outcomes. Eighty percent of doctors surveyed said that prior authorization sometimesleads patients to pay out-of-pocket for a medication, and 31% said payers are rarely or never using evidence-based criteria to make coverage decisions. More distressingly, 29% of physicians reported that prior authorization led to a serious adverse event for a patient in their care. More specifically, these shares of physicians said that prior authorization led to:

• A patient’s hospitalization—23%.
• A life-threatening event, or one that required intervention to prevent permanent damage—18%.
• A patient’s disability, permanent bodily damage, congenital anomaly, birth defect or death—8%.

More burdens for physicians

Physicians also feel the administrative burden of prior authorization, which reduces their time with patients and negatively affects their practices. On average, physicians and their staff spend 13 hours a week completing the prior authorization workload for a single physician. Forty percent of physicians employ staff whose primary job is to work on this task. These shares of physician respondents also revealed that prior authorization:

• Somewhat or significantly increases physician burnout—89%.
• Has increased somewhat or significantly over the last five years—75%.
• Is often or always denied—31%.

In cases of adverse payer decisions on prior authorization requests, 20% of physicians will always appeal. Physicians report various reasons for not appealing health-plan denials, with 67% reported doubts about an appeal’s success based on their past experiences. Over half said patient care could not wait for the health plan’s approval process, and 55% said they had insufficient resources to file an appeal.

The cost of prior authorization

The survey also revealed that prior authorization adds significant costs to the U.S. health system, forcing patients to try ineffective treatments and schedule additional office visits. A strong majority of physicians—88%—reported that prior authorization leads to higher overall utilization of health care resources. These shares of physicians reported that prior authorization increases utilization in the following ways:

• Led to ineffective initial treatment—77%.
• Additional office visits—73%.
• Immediate care or emergency department visits—47%.
• Hospitalizations—33%.

Prior authorization can also affect productivity in the workplace, if employees are missing work due to delays in care leading to prolonged illness or attending rescheduled appointments. Nearly 60% of physicians with patients in the workforce said prior authorization has affected work performance among their patients.

Insurers must follow through

Back in 2018, the AMA joined the American Hospital Association, American Pharmacists Association, Medical Group Management Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in releasing a consensus statement (PDF) on how to improve prior authorization. Seven years later, surveyed physicians reported that health plans have made little progress honoring their commitments as outlined in that document. Major payers such as UnitedHealthcare and Cigna pledged to reduce services requiring prior authorization in 2023. But just 16% of physicians who work with UnitedHealthcare and Cigna, respectively, reported that the changes led to a reduction in prior authorization requirements. There has been some momentum to fix prior authorization at the state and federal levels. States enacted 13 prior authorization reform bills last year to cut the volume of prior authorization requirements, reduce patient care delays, improve transparency surrounding prior authorization rules and increase prior authorization data reporting. At the federal level, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last year issued a final rule that included prior authorization reforms designed to cut patient-care delays and electronically streamline the process for physicians. However, the continuing resolution that Congress passed in late 2024 to keep the federal government operating into 2025 failed to include prior authorization reform in the final package—a reform with vast bipartisan support in both chambers. The AMA and others are calling for five critical reforms, including speeding up response times and maintaining continuity of care. Patients, doctors and employers can learn more about reform efforts and share their personal experiences with prior authorization at FixPriorAuth.org.

Elon Musk’s X was hit by waves of outages earlier Monday, which the billionaire claims was due to a cyberattack with IP addresses originating in Ukraine. “We’re not sure exactly what happened,” Musk said during a Fox Business interview Monday afternoon. “But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.” Musk did not give any further details about the origin of the attack, including whether he believes it was connected to the Ukrainian government. It is possible to mask IP addresses and make it seem as though the traffic is coming from elsewhere, and spoofing locations is often offered by hackers-for-hire. According to outage tracking site DownDetector, the problems began around 6 a.m. ET when up to 20,538 users reported problems. The issues temporarily died down before nearly 40,000 users reported outages at 10 am. Outages reported on DownDetector began to drop around 2 p.m. ET and trailed off throughout the afternoon. Many users on DownDetector said the platform wouldn’t load, and the outage appeared to be global, according to DownDetector’s international sites. During the Fox Business interview, which aired during the 4 p.m. ET hour, Musk said platform was working again. DownDetector data is self-reported, meaning it doesn’t fully represent the outage’s scale. CNN has reached out to X, though the company doesn’t usually respond to press inquiries. Musk posted on X early Monday afternoon that he believed “a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved,” though the source of motivation behind the attack wasn’t confirmed. Musk also replied “Yes” to a post on X suggesting people are trying to silence the billionaire and his platform, although no further details about the service disruption, including whether it was caused by a targeted attack, have been revealed. Eric Noonan, CEO of cybersecurity provider CyberSheath, told CNN that it’s likely too early to tell if an attack caused the issues. “One of the things that should always be taken with a grain of salt is any statements made in the short period of time, immediately after, or even in this case during an attack,” Noonan said. Musk has a history of attributing technical snafus to cyberattacks. When his conversation with Donald Trump on X started 42 minutes late in August 2024, he said there was a “probability” of an attack. “Given the prominence of this conversation, there was of course a 100% probability of DDOS attacks,” Musk posted on the social media platform at the time. DDOS stands for “distributed denial-of-service,” which involves overwhelming servers with fake traffic to cause service disruptions. But Florida Governor Ron Desantis’ presidential campaign announcement on X in 2023 was also marred by technical difficulties. Ransomware attacks have been more common than DDOS attacks in recent years because they’re usually financially motivated, according to Noonan. DDOS, however, is typically used to cause a disruption, which also makes confirming the source of these types of attacks more difficult. Musk implemented widespread cuts and major changes to X after acquiring the popular social media platform, then called Twitter, in 2022. He immediately laid off top executives and, within days of acquiring X, cut 3,500 people, or around half the platform’s workforce. He laid off 80% of the staff in total and required the remaining employees to return-to-office full time. The platform has experienced a series of glitches and disruptions since the acquisition. It’s been a tough day for the businesses owned by Musk, who is also the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). On Monday, Tesla shares fell 15% on Monday, erasing its gains since Trump’s November 2024 election.

BEIJING, March 9 (Reuters) – China’s consumer price index in February missed expectations and fell at the sharpest pace in 13 months, while producer price deflation persisted, as seasonal demand faded and households remained cautious about spending amid job and income worries.

Beijing last week vowed greater efforts to boost consumption in the face of an escalating trade war with the U.S., but analysts expect deflationary pressures in the world’s second-largest economy to drag on.

Stocks sank last week as a lack of clarity around President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and what they could mean for the economy’s overall trajectory gripped markets.

For the week, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell more than 3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid more than 2%, or about 1,000 points. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the losses, falling almost 3.5%. The Nasdaq has now fallen more than 10% from its last record high in December and is in a correction.

In the week ahead key updates on inflation, with fresh readings on the Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI), will be in focus as investors look for any clues on how tariffs may impact the path forward for prices. Updates on inflation expectations and consumer sentiment are also on the calendar.

In a quieter week of corporate earnings releases, Oracle (ORCL) and Adobe (ADBE) will highlight the schedule.

Fed isn’t ‘in a hurry’

Friday’s February jobs report came and went with few surprises. The US labor market added 151,000 jobs in the month, just below expectations, while the unemployment rate inched up to 4.1%. Economists largely read the report as better-than-feared, given other signs of economic growth slowing.

Bank of America US economist Shruti Mishra described the report as “mostly a sigh of relief.” Markets continue to price in three interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in 2025, per Bloomberg data.

But the looming question for markets remains when the Federal Reserve will actually cut rates again. In a speech on Friday Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said any further rate reductions likely aren’t imminent.

“We do not need to be in a hurry and are well-positioned to wait for greater clarity,” Powell said.

There will be no Fed speak in the week ahead as the central bank enters its blackout period ahead of its next meeting on March 18-19.