Producer prices rose in the 12 months through October at 8.6 percent, matching the prior month’s rate—the highest since 2008—and reinforcing broader concerns about inflation as higher production costs tend to trickle down to consumers. The Labor Department said in a Nov. 9 statement that the producer price index (PPI) jumped by 8.6 percent year-over-year in October and 0.6 percent month-over-month, in both cases matching economists’ forecasts. The monthly rate represented a 0.1 percentage point rise over the prior month’s pace, suggesting the rate of inflation was picking up after several consecutive months of successively lower numbers. Since producers often pass on higher input costs to consumers, the PPI data is widely seen as a leading indicator of consumer price inflation, which accounts for the bulk of overall inflation. Analysts at ING said in a recent note that the extent to which elevated producer costs will ultimately get passed on to consumers depends …