By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. producer prices fell a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in November, mostly because of lower energy costs, the Labor Department said Thursday. Excluding the volatile categories of food and energy, so-called core producer prices edged up 0.1% last month. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.5% decline in the overall producer price index and a 0.2% rise in core PPI. Energy prices sank 4.6%, the biggest one-month decline since March 2009, while the wholesale cost of food rose 1.3%. Over the past year wholesale prices have risen an unadjusted 1.5%, or by a larger 2.2% excluding food and energy.
