WASHINGTON (MCT)- Producer prices soared in November at the fastest pace in decades, pushed higher by rebounding energy prices and a quirky gain in car and truck prices.

The November producer price index climbed by 2 percent, the biggest rise since 1974, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The PPI had fallen 1.6 percent in October.

The core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 1.3 percent, driven by higher prices for cars and trucks, following a 0.9 percent decline in October. It’s the biggest gain in the core rate since 1980.

The big jump in the PPI was in sharp contrast to the November consumer price index, which was unchanged on both the headline and core measures.

Fueled by renewed fears of inflation, bond prices initially fell after the report, sending the yield on the 10-year note up to 4.60 percent. Prices later recovered, pegging the benchmark 10-year yield at 4.58 percent.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting the PPI to rise by 0.7 percent, although some expected much larger gains. They also forecast a 0.3 percent rise in the core PPI.

“We continue to pound the idea that the PPI just does not matter,” wrote Stephen Stanley, chief economist for RBS Greenwich Capital. The Federal Reserve is not basing its monetary policy on producer prices, he said.

Much of the gain in the headline producer price number came from energy prices, which rose by 6.1 percent. Gasoline prices rose 17.9 percent. Wholesale prices for home heating oil climbed by 7.7 percent. Natural gas prices, meanwhile, rose by 5.9 percent.

The surprise in the core PPI was entirely due to big increases in car and truck prices that reversed big price declines in October.

“The volatility in the motor vehicle category of the PPI has gotten totally out of hand,” wrote David Greenlaw, an economist at Morgan Stanley, in an e-mail. “These data should be dismissed out of hand.”

Car prices rose 2.2 percent in November after falling 2.3 percent in October. Light truck prices rose a record 13.7 percent following October’s 9.7 percent decline.

“The sharp swings that now appear almost every month are inconsistent with pricing patterns in the real world,” Greenlaw said. “The problem appears to reflect sampling.”

“Stripping motor vehicles out, it looks like the core PPI was up a “low’ 0.2 percent, following a series of flat or up 0.1 percent readings core ex-motor vehicles in prior months,” Stanley said. “So, today’s spike was not a broad-based affair.”

Year over year, the PPI is up 0.9 percent. Year over year, the core PPI is up 1.8 percent.

The inflation picture was mixed further back in the production pipeline. Prices of intermediate goods destined for further processing rose 0.7 percent, but core intermediate goods prices fell 0.3 percent. In the past year, the core intermediate PPI is up 5.1 percent, down from a peak of 8.3 percent in August.

The Fed watches the core intermediate PPI closely for signs of rising inflationary pressures. Over the past 20 years, the Fed has always waited until after the core intermediate PPI has peaked before easing monetary policy.

Prices of crude materials rose 15.7 percent, pushed up by a 36 percent increase in energy prices.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said housing starts rose nearly 7 percent in November, while building permits fell 3 percent to a fresh nine-year low.