If you were up all night worrying about the overshoot on headline CPI reported by the BLS on Thursday, Friday offered some respite: US producer prices fell in December from November. Economists expected a small increase.

The 0.1% MoM decline was the third consecutive, and you can thank another drop in goods prices, which was in turn attributable mostly to a 1.2% decrease in the final demand energy gauge. The index for food posted its largest MoM decline since May.

Excluding food and energy, PPI prices were unchanged versus expectations for a 0.2% increase. The ex-trade services print was 0.2%.

To be sure, the decline for December was good news, particularly when paired with a downward revision to November’s MoM reading. There’s disinflation in the pipeline, so to speak.

That said, the update’s potential to move markets was limited Friday both by the timing of the release (after CPI) and the confluence of more important developments, both market-related and geopolitical.

On a YoY basis, PPI prices rose 1%, a bit quicker than November’s annual rate, but slower than the 1.3% consensus expected. Broadly speaking, PPI growth has settled at around 1% YoY.

Plainly, any renewed increase in energy prices (say, in the event of additional Mideast escalations following US-UK strikes on Yemen) could upset things, but for now, the situation is favorable.

“On aggregate, it was a softer read on price growth, and after the post-CPI reaction on Thursday, the PPI data has been enough to exaggerate the bull steepening,” BMO’s Ben Jeffery remarked.

Bond traders, he went on, shouldn’t “forget the geopolitical escalations in the Red Sea and the implied headline risk — relevant from both a flight-to-quality and supply side inflation perspective.”