• Prior was +1.9%
• Export prices vs +1.2% expected
• Prior export prices +3.3%

The US dollar is relatively flat today ahead of the data as we wait for Wednesday’s FOMC decision.

For background, the US Import and Export Price Indexes, published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, track what Americans pay for foreign goods and what foreigners pay for American ones. It’s the unglamorous cousin of CPI and PPI — released mid-month, after the inflation prints that move markets — but it’s the cleanest read on imported price pressure and the terms of trade. Crucially, it measures prices at the border, before domestic margins and retail markups distort the signal, which makes it the single best gauge of whether tariffs are being absorbed by foreign exporters or passed straight to U.S. buyers.

The April report leaned hot. Import prices rose 1.9 percent in April following a 0.9 percent increase in March, with higher fuel costs doing the heavy lifting. That pushed the 12-month rate of import inflation to 4.2 percent, up from 2.3 percent in March and just 0.2 percent at the start of the year — a remarkably steep acceleration in four months. Strip out the fuel noise and the picture is firmer but tamer: capital goods prices climbed 1.1 percent, consumer goods ex-autos rose 0.4 percent, and automotive prices slipped 0.1 percent.

The export side ran even hotter. Export prices jumped 3.3 percent in April and 8.8 percent over the year, the largest over-the-year advance since the index rose 9.8 percent for the year ended September 2022. Agricultural exports added 1.6 percent on the month.