Producer prices rose above expectations in May, marking their biggest 12-month increase on record and reinforcing broader inflation concerns as higher production costs tend to filter down to consumers. According to a Labor Department release (pdf), for the 12 months ending in May the producer price index (PPI) surged by 6.6 percent, the highest number in the history of the series, which dates back to 2010. Economists polled by Investing.com were expecting a 6.3 percent rise in the PPI final demand measure. Producer prices excluding food, energy, and trade services—a gauge often preferred by economists because it excludes the most volatile components—rose 5.3 percent in May from a year earlier. This, too, was the biggest increase since the Labor Department started tracking that number in 2014. Energy prices surged by a seasonally unadjusted 46.6 percent over the year in May, goods advanced 11.1 percent, and food 4.4 percent, the data showed. …