Dental equipment PPI: how this desk reads FRED PCU339114339114

This desk names FRED PCU339114339114 as a cost-of-goods series for dental equipment and supplies — not a dealer book and not an invoice. FRED’s title is Producer Price Index by Industry: Dental Equipment and Supplies Manufacturing. BLS is the source on that FRED page. The industry is NAICS 339114, not Offices of Dentists.

How we read it: monthly, not seasonally adjusted, and an index (FRED’s units are Index Jun 1985=100). That base period is not the same as dental services PPI. We do not subtract one print from the other or call the gap a margin. A higher index number here is not a chairside fee.

Honesty about this site: Markets can load this series on the COSTS board. The live Dental PPI pane on Desk currently loads the services series only. We will not pretend Desk charts a series it does not fetch, and we will not paste a static last print into this article.

What we will not do with this series:

• treat it as a catalog or distributor quote
• treat it as a practice supplies spend
• invent a same-day change or a “fair equipment multiple”
• substitute it for services PPI

Establishment counts for dental offices are a different public program. That read is Census NAICS 621210.