Wall Street Journal (01/16/15) Ben Leubsdorf; Eric Morath

The consumer-price index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% last month from November, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The decline was the biggest one-month drop in six years. Excluding energy and food, prices were unchanged in December from November. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.4% drop in overall prices and a 0.1% increase in core prices. Consumer prices increased 0.8% in December from a year earlier, declining from a 1.3% annual gain in November. December saw the smallest annual increase in prices since October 2009, when prices declined 0.2% on the year.