Japan’s deeper inflation trend shows price growth spreading

Japan’s prices are showing further signs of rising on a wider basis as soaring commodity prices and a weak yen force companies to pass higher costs onto consumers at a pace not seen in decades.

Multiple gauges of the deeper inflation trend hit record highs in June, according to data released by the Bank of Japan on Tuesday. The trimmed mean, a measure of price growth that factors out the biggest gains and falls, rose 1.6% from a year earlier. That’s the fastest rate of increase in data back to 2001, according to the bank.