With an increase in prices for pharmaceutical preparations offset by a drop in energy prices, the Labor Department released a report on Wednesday showing that U.S. producer prices unexpectedly came in unchanged in the month of July.

The Labor Department said its producer price index was unchanged in July following a 0.8 percent increase in June. Economists had been expecting the index to increase by about 0.3 percent.

The core producer price index, which excludes food and energy prices, edged up by 0.1 percent in July after rising by 0.2 percent in the previous month. Core prices had been expected to show another 0.2 percent increase.