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Is the following sentence correct?

Last week's sharp hike in the wholesale price of beef is a strong indication for higher meat costs to come.

I think the sentence is correct but for must be changed to of. But my book says costs is incorrectly used and use of for is correct in the sentence above

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    I'm with you. In my opinion it is usual to say " ... indication of higher ..." . Since meat sells at more than one price, costs is correct. Although you could say " ... indication of the higher cost of meat to come"
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 12:30

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Last week's sharp hike in the wholesale price of beef is a strong indication for higher meat costs to come.

  • The "for" in my opinion is definitely incorrect here, since in major cases "indication for" means "a symptom, problem, or situation in need of certain treatment or fixing". In my opinion, this isn't the case. Here it is "a piece of information that shows us something (indicates)". (see indication)

The choice of plural "costs" makes sense because meat prices vary from area to area, from region to region. It isn't one cost, it's a variety of them.

There is a way to rephrase it as follows:

Last week's sharp hike in the wholesale price of beef is a strong indication that higher meat costs are to come.

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