German wholesale prices rose 8.7%. Do you follow the price pipeline through to consumer inflation?

Destatis reported on 14 October that German wholesale selling prices rose 8.7% on the year in September and 1.9% on August. Mineral oil products were 48.8% dearer than a year earlier (wholesale report). On 20 October, producer prices were up 6.7% on the year, with energy up 14.9% (producer price report).

Wholesale and producer prices come before consumer prices in the supply chain, so they are often used as a pipeline indicator. The link is loose: retailers and manufacturers absorb part of a cost rise, and the timing varies from one product to another. Because each stage reports a different price measure, a move at one stage can take months to appear at the next, and some of it may never reach the shops.

We would like to hear how you use the pipeline:

• Do you follow wholesale prices into the consumer figure, and over how many months?
• When energy drives the pipeline, do you expect core inflation to follow?
• Which German figure do you trust most for the euro: wholesale, producer or consumer?
• Have you traded EUR on a producer price surprise, and what happened?

German inflation for September gives the consumer side, and how inflation moves currencies explains the channel to the euro.

Please share your own approach and reasoning, not calls for others to copy. Posts that promise a direction or sell signals will be removed.