U.S. consumer prices post largest drop in five years

U.S. consumer prices post largest drop in five years

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI dropping 0.3% in March and climbing 1.6% year-on-year.. The government said many indexes were based on smaller amounts of collected prices and a small number of indexes that are normally published were not published in March.. In the 12 months through March, the core CPI rose 2.1% after increasing 2.4% in February.. The core PCE price index increased 1.8% on a year-on-year basis in February after rising 1.7% in January.. With some components in the producer price index report that feed into the core PCE price index weakening in March, economists expect inflation pulled back last month..