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Maritime shipping

Marine Cargo Handling — Monthly Producer Price Index

Producer price index for US marine cargo handling (stevedoring and marine terminal services, NAICS 488320), tracking the prices these firms receive for their services. Monthly index, December 1991 = 100, not seasonally adjusted.

Data status: Provisional
Official statisticSource figures as of October 16, 2026Sources & methods
Sources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Period covered
Dec 1991 – Sep 2026
Source figures as of
October 16, 2026
Geography
United States
Sector
Transportation, Maritime Trade & Logistics · Maritime shipping
Seasonal adjustment
Not seasonally adjusted
Transformations
Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
Revisions
2 figures revised by the source recently; the site shows the latest version.
Data status
Provisional
Limitations
Figures from Jun 2026 on are preliminary at the source. Seasonal swings are left in: compare a period with the same period a year earlier.

Full method · Research standards

No projectionIn backtests at 40 past dates, a statistical projection (exponential smoothing, damped trend) was not clearly better than a no-change forecast: its errors over the next 3 months were 2% smaller, short of the 5% improvement needed, so none is shown. How we decide

Key figures

CK estimateIndex (Dec 1991=100) · calculated by CK Economics from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data

Latest · Sep 2026
191.3
+1.3% vs a year earlier1
5-year change
+12.3%
since Sep 2021, +2.4% a year2
10-year change
+24.3%
since Sep 2016, +2.2% a year2
Record high
191.3
Jul 2026 (and 2 other periods)3
Record low
100
Dec 19913
Where the latest ranks
99th pct.
Higher than 99% of the other 417 observations since Dec 19914
  1. 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
  2. 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
  3. 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
  4. 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.

Seasonal pattern

CK estimate

Each month of 2026 and 2025 against the average and range of the same month in 2021–2025. Calculated by CK Economics from the published series.

Monthly Index (Dec 1991=100) in 2026 and 2025 compared with the 2021–2025 average and range
2026 2025 2021–2025 average 2021–2025 range

Methodology

The Producer Price Index by Industry for marine cargo handling (NAICS 488320) measures the average change over time in the prices received by US establishments that load and unload ships and operate marine cargo terminals: stevedoring, container and bulk terminal handling, and related dockside services. It measures prices charged by the service providers, not what shippers pay end to end, and it covers the whole United States, not a single port. The index is set to 100 in December 1991, when the series began, and is not seasonally adjusted. The values are the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures as mirrored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), with no transformation. The record runs monthly from December 1991 with no missing months. BLS published the index to one decimal place until 2021 and to three decimal places from January 2022. All 417 monthly values were checked against the BLS series table on data.bls.gov and match at the precision BLS publishes. Each new month is first released as preliminary; BLS revises it four months after the original release, after which the figure is final. The four most recent months (May–August 2026 at the time of writing) are preliminary and may change. Many terminal rates are set under annual tariffs and labor contracts, so the index tends to move in steps, often in January. Projection: none. CK Economics backtests a statistical projection of this series (exponential smoothing with a damped trend) by refitting it at past dates and scoring its forecasts against what happened. Its errors over the next three months were not at least 5% smaller than those of the better of a no-change forecast and repeating the same month a year earlier, so no projection is shown.

How we collect, check and project every dataset →

Source

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index by Industry: Marine Cargo Handling (PCU488320488320), via FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU488320488320 — figures as published on 16 October 2026.

All data

418 observations, newest first · Index (Dec 1991=100)

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PeriodValueChange y/y
Sep 2026191.3+1.3%
Aug 2026191.3+1.3%
Jul 2026191.3+1.8%
Jun 2026190.3+1.6%
May 2026190.3+1.6%
Apr 2026190.3+1.6%
Mar 2026190.3+2.2%
Feb 2026190.3+3.3%
Jan 2026190.3+3.3%
Dec 2025190.1+3.1%
Nov 2025190.1+3.1%
Oct 2025190.1+3.1%
Sep 2025188.8+3.1%
Aug 2025188.8+3.1%
Jul 2025187.9+4.0%
Jun 2025187.3+4.5%
May 2025187.3+4.5%
Apr 2025187.3+4.8%
Mar 2025186.2+4.2%
Feb 2025184.3+4.4%
Jan 2025184.3+4.8%
Dec 2024184.4+5.2%
Nov 2024184.4+6.3%
Oct 2024184.4+7.2%

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