producer price index

n. (Abbr. PPI)
A comprehensive index of wholesale price changes, often viewed as an indicator of future retail price changes.

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A family of indexes that measures the average change in selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services over time. PPIs measure price change from the perspective of the seller.

Investopedia Says:
The PPI looks at three areas of production: industry-based, commodity-based, and stage-of-processing-based companies.

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Measure of change in wholesale prices (formerly called the wholesale price index), as released monthly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The index is broken down into components by commodity, industry sector, and stage of processing. The PPI tracks prices of foods, metals, lumber, oil and gas, and many other commodities, but does not measure the price of services. Economists look at trends in the PPI as an accurate precursor to changes in the CPI, since upward or downward pressure on wholesale prices is usually passed through to consumer prices over time. The PPI, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor, is based at 100 in 1982 and is released monthly. Economists also look at the PPI excluding the volatile food and energy components, which they call the "core" PPI. The consumer equivalent of this index is the Consumer Price Index.

Formerly known as the wholesale price index, listing of the prices of approximately 3,000 basic items, such as raw materials or semifinished goods, published monthly by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. See also consumer price index.

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