US wholesale prices rose more than twice as fast as expected.

• A. Wholesale
• B. Retail
• C. Industrial
• D. Consumer

Answer: (A)

Understanding price measures and what each term refers to helps interpret this. Wholesale prices describe the cost charged by producers or wholesalers to retailers before goods reach the end consumer. Since the sentence explicitly mentions wholesale prices, the best answer is the one that matches that level of trade. Wholesale prices are typically tracked by the Producer Price Index and indicate upstream inflation; if they rise sharply, it can signal that consumer prices may rise later as costs are passed along the supply chain. The other terms describe different stages: retail prices are what you pay in stores, consumer prices are captured by the consumer price index, and industrial isn’t a standard label for a price measure in this context.