Global Macro Perspectives
Empire State Manufacturing General Business Conditions Index for January came out at 11.92 vs. 12.5 consensus and revised prior reading of 9.89 (revised from 10.57).
Slight improvement, looks like industrial production will continue expanding.
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Weekly economic calendar.
Housing and commercial real-estate prices in China rose 6.4% y-o-y in December compared with 7.7% reading in November and 7.0% consensus. On monthly level the prices were up 0.3% same as in November.
Adding to China worries, it’s positive that the growth in real-estate value is moderating, but the risk (and fear) is that the prices could start falling.
Baltic dry index fell 5.3% last week; Capesize Index was down 14.5%; Panamax Index fell 0.7%; Supramax Index rose 3.9%; Handysize Index fell 0.6%.
Iron ore stockpiles have risen a bit despite Queensland floods, that’s kind of worrying because despite Queensland supply disruptions there is no apparent physical lack of iron ore. On the other hand it seems Baltic dry index is forming a bottom at 1.500 level.
Baltic Dirty Tanker Index fell 7.3%; Baltic Clean Tanker Index rose 2.4%.
Markets well supplied with ships available, clean rates probably rose on clean products being shipped to tight West European markets.
U.S. railroads originated 285,108 carloads, up 20.4% compared with the same week in 2010 and down 1.1% compared with 5-year average. Week over week change was 20.4%.
Significant improvement.
Lot of work on my day job, so I didn’t have time to get to this…
Working gas in storage fell 138 Bcf from previous week. The consensus was at 146 Bcf.
Storage level 107 Bcf higher than same time year ago. In short a replay of last’s year oversupply.
December University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment preliminary reading was reported at 72.7 vs. 75.5 consensus and 74.5 December reading.
Down slightly
U.S. industrial production rose 0.8% in December. The consensus was at 0.5%, November revised (down 0.1%) reading was at 0.3%. On year level industrial production is up 5.9%.
U.S. retail sales rose 0.6% in December. The consensus was at 0.8%, November reading was at +0.8%. On year level retail sales are up 7.6%.
U.S. consumer price index rose 0.5% in December vs. 0.4% consensus and November reading of 0.4%. On year level CPI inflation is running at 1.4%.
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Crude oil stocks fell 2.2 million barrels; Gasoline stocks rose 5.1 million barrels; Distillate stocks were up 2.7 million barrels; Propane/propylene stocks were down 3.4 million barrels; Other oils stocks decreased 3.4 million barrels; Total crude oil and petroleum stocks were 0.9 million barrels higher for the week.
Refinery utilization rose 1.6% to 86.4%.
Implied crude oil demand remained unchanged.
Crude oil and petroleum product net imports rose 1.4 million barrels to 9.3 million barrels.
Large gasoline stockpiling because of bad weather. Going into new year crude oil stocks will probably rise on refiner restocking and not so stellar demand.