Key Currency Exchange Rates for 12/23/21

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 7.4% in December after rising 3.2% in November. In December, the index equaled 120 (2015=100) compared with 111.7 in November. “Tonnage ended last year on a high note,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The index not only registered the largest monthly gain since June, but it also had the first year-over-year increase since March. Freight continues to be helped by strong consumption, a retail inventory restocking, and robust single-family home construction. With the stimulus checks recently issued and with a strong possibility of more in the near future, I would expect truck freight to continue rising.” November’s gain was revised down slightly to 3.2% from our December 22 press release. Compared with December 2019, the SA index rose 2.3%. For all of 2020, compared with the same 12-month period in 2019, tonnage was down 3.3%. 2019 had an annual increase of 3.3%.

Futures added 1.5 percent in New York. China’s crude imports last month jumped to the second-highest on record, customs data show, while U.S. government data on Thursday showed crude inventories fell by 2.75 million barrels last week. OPEC is said to expect a global oil glut will be gone a year from now. President Donald Trump is expected on Friday to disavow a deal with Iran that helped revive its oil exports, while stopping short of abandoning it. Oil has rebounded from the biggest weekly loss since May on signs that output cuts led by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are draining a surplus. OPEC expects the effort to succeed by the end of the third quarter of next year, said people familiar with the group’s internal forecasts. The prediction assumes that production in Libya and Nigeria will remain at current levels and U.S. shale output will expand by no more than 500,000 barrels a day next year, two people familiar with the matter said. Click Read More below for additional information.

With demand for the fuel accelerating in September after a hurricane knocked out a swath of U.S. refining and fires eliminated processing in Europe’s hub, diesel was credited with underpinning a rally in crude. Brent jumped above $60 a barrel last month and is still on an upward trajectory. But while those refinery issues are normalizing -- and diesel is weakening -- there’s been little let-up in the rally in crude futures. They reached a more than two-year high of $64.65 a barrel on Nov. 7, and remain close to that. “This will counter the recent support to crude,” Alan Gelder, vice-president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, said of signs the diesel market is weaker than expected. “Particularly if demand growth turns out to be disappointing” given the importance of diesel as a source of consumption during winter months. Click Read More below for additional information.