Global Macro Perspectives
Baltic Dirty Tanker Index fell 21.4%; Baltic Clean Tanker Index fell 17.4% during the holidays.
Large oversupply of ships in the Gulf. Somewhat strange that cost of shipping fell do much during crude oil price rally.
Baltic Dry Index fell 4.3% today while Queensland floods worsened.
*** The Street: Kass: The Risk Remains ***
*** Wall Street Cheat Sheet: Ten Themes to Watch in 2011 ***
*** The Big Picture: Was 2010 Commodity a Rally in a Bear Market ? ***
*** FT Energy Source Blog: Barclays: Oil will hit $100 per barrel this year ***
*** FT Alphaville: Forget non-performing loans, how ’bout performing ones? ***
*** FT Alphaville: Casualties of the currency war ***
*** FT Alphaville: Presenting the Irish bailout bond… ***
*** Paper Economy: Reading Rates: MBA Application Survey – January 05 2010 ***
*** Distressed Volatility: SP Future Large Specs Vs. ES Future Large Specs (COT Charts 12/28/2010) ***
ISM Non- Manufacturing Index was reported at 57.1 vs. 56.0 consensus; November reading was at 55.0.
Improvements here also.
ADP Employment rose 297.000 in November vs. revised (down 1,000) gain of 92,000 in November. This reading is off the charts, highest since at least 2001 (I don’t have older data).
Nonfarm payrolls on Friday (rule of thumb) could be better than 140.000 consensus.
Challenger’s count of layoff announcements was reported at 32,004 in December vs. 48,711 in November.
Lowest reading since June 2000. That says it all.
U.S. total motor vehicle sales for December rose 2.2% to 12.53 million SAAR. On year level motor vehicle sales are up 12.7%.
Like with other consumer related parts of the economy auto purchases are steadily gaining ground.