The producer price index for services that Japanese businesses buy jumped by 0.82% in April from March, after a similar jump in March from April, according to data from the Bank of Japan. On an annualized basis, both those jumps amounted to just over 10%. In the data that exclude the consumption tax hikes in the past, the April spike boosted the year-over-year increase to 2.9%, the worst jump going back to 1991. The fiscal year for Japanese companies begins in April, and many of them adjust their prices at this time, and a big portion of the month-to-month price spikes in March and in April were a result of companies ... (full story)