U.S. producer prices fall on lower oil prices

The U.S. wholesale prices edged down in April as falling oil prices pushed down factory costs, the latest figure released by the Labor Department showed on Thursday.

The Producer Price Index (PPI), a gauge of inflation at the factory gate, decreased 0.4 percent in April from March on a seasonally adjusted basis. It followed a 0.2-percent rise in March.

Excluding the volatile food and energy sectors, the so-called " core" wholesale prices edged down 0.2 percent, below the Federal Reserve's annual target of 2 percent, which indicated the general inflation pressure was still tamed.

The low inflation pressure will be a factor as policy makers weigh when to start raising short-term interest rates.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has recently said that recent drop in inflation was mainly due to oil price drop, and that the Fed was reasonably confident that inflation would move back over the medium term toward the objective, as the labor market conditions continued to improve. Endite