PPI Commodity data for Lumber and wood products-Softwood lumber, made from purchased lumber, not seasonally adjusted, discontinued

The PPI universe for discontinued commodity series consists of the output of all industries in the goods-producing sectors of the U.S. economy- mining, manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, and forestry- as well as natural gas, electricity, construction, and goods competitive with those made in the producing sectors, such as waste and scrap materials. In addition, as of January 2011, the PPI program covered more than three-quarters of the service sector's output, publishing data for selected industries in the following industry sectors: wholesale and retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; finance and insurance; real estate brokering, rental, and leasing; professional, scientific, and technical services; administrative, support, and waste management services; health care and social assistance; and accommodation.

To the extent possible, prices used in constructing the indexes are the actual revenue or net transaction prices producers receive for sales of their outputs. Scientific (probability) sampling techniques are used to select reporting establishments, products, and transactions for all types and volumes of output (not just volume-sellers).

The commodity classification structure of the PPI organizes products by similarity of end use or material composition, regardless of whether the products are classified as primary or secondary in their industry of origin. This system is unique to the PPI and does not match any other standard coding structure. The commodity classification system is organized as a hierarchical structure that starts with major commodity groupings (2-digit level of aggregation). Each major commodity grouping includes (in descending order of aggregation) subgroups (3-digit level), product classes (4-digit level), subproduct classes (5- and 6-digit level), item groupings (7-digit level), and individual items (8-, 9-, and 10-digit levels). Commodity-based SOP price indexes regroup commodities at the subproduct class (six-digit) level, according to the class of buyer and the amount of physical processing or assembling the products have undergone.

More than 4,000 commodity price indexes organized by product, service, and end use. Indexes by stage of processing (52 series) and by durability of product (8 series) are available back to 1947.

In addition, data are available for 29 special commodity groupings. Seasonally adjusted data are available for about 360 commodity indexes.

Observations are monthly in most cases. All indexes are stored with one decimal place.

Updates are made near the middle of the month following a given reference month. For example, January index data are made available in February. The majority of discontinuation of series is done on a semiannual basis, with the release of January and July data.

References: BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 14, "Producer Prices", Online at http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch14.htm