The prices-paid component, an inflation gauge, fell to 53.3 in the month from 57.4 in March.

Another inflation gauge, the implicit price deflator, eased to 3.8 percent from 4.2.

The Consumer Price Index, the best-known inflation gauge, rose 3.2 percent over the last 12 months.

It also showed that personal consumption expenditures - used by the Fed as an inflation gauge - rose at their slowest rate since mid-2003.

The price of gold, a familiar inflation indicator, declined and the dollar, a more recent inflation gauge, fell, too.

This inflation gauge rose at a modest 1.9 percent pace in the first quarter even though energy prices advanced.

The implicit price deflator, a less accurate inflation gauge because its composition is constantly changing, declined to a 2.4 percent rate, from 2.7.

A fall of 0.9 percent in the cost of driving a car was the main reason the index, Britain's principal inflation gauge, slowed.

But an inflation gauge in the purchasing managers' report declined, comforting the stock market, where a selloff was stemmed after two days.

An inflation gauge closely watched by the Fed showed that core prices - excluding food and energy - rose 2 percent in the first quarter.