Global Macro Perspectives
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*** The Slope Of Hope: COT Report Week Ending 1/4 ***
*** Calculated Risk: Lawler: Early Read on December Existing Home Sales ***
Number of crude oil drilling rigs rose for 12; Number of natural gas drilling rigs fell for 5.
On world scale number of oil & gas drilling rigs rose for 76 in December.
*** FT BeyondBRICs: Guest post: bubble trouble in Bangladesh ***
*** FT BeyondBRICs: China car sales up 33 per cent, official ***
*** FT Alphaville: There will be no UK house price fall in 2011 ***
*** FT Alphaville: Timeline Portugal ***
*** The Big Picture: QOTD: A Bull on Your Business Card ***
*** The Big Picture: Greenspan: ‘Prove I Was Wrong’ ***
*** The Slope Of Hope: Looking For Tops is as Easy as 1-2-3 ***
*** The Slope Of Hope: Are We There Yet? ***
*** The Slope Of Hope: What Do the Last 4 Tops in the S&P Have in Common? ***
*** Visualizing Economics: Effect of Inflation on S&P Price Return (1871-2010) ***
Baltic dry index fell 14.3% in the last two weeks; Capesize Index was down 20.5%; Panamax Index rose 4.9%; Supramax Index was down 10.2%; Handysize Index fell 7.1%.
Iron stockpiles & steel inventory mostly unchanged; Iron ore and steel prices stable. Today’s China trade balance data was weak and I would be careful until we find out whether is it government orchestrated year end slowdown or a genuine one.
China trade balance was reported at USD 13.1 billion vs. USD 22.9 billion in November and USD 20.8 billion consensus. Export and import growth were running at 17.9 and 25.6 percent vs. 34.9% and 37.7% in November.
Total accumulated surplus for 2010 was USD 185.6 billion vs. USD 198.2 in full year 2009.
Sharp decline in trade balance surplus and both export and import growth confirm what I already anticipated on freight rates. What is even worse there’s no recovery in freight rates in January (jet).