I have received several inquiries regarding the recent divergence between the BDI and my dry bulk shipping index (DBSI), and thought I should touch on the subject. First and foremost I believe that a large portion of the divergence can be explained as a US dollar story. Also, recent weakness has been mostly isolated to […]
Archive:
September 2009
A potential record US harvest could help buoy rates for small to mid-size ship rates. What was a relatively mild and wet spring and summer has created conditions for what is setting up to be one of the nation’s biggest harvests. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is projecting a total corn crop of 12.954bn bushels, […]
August housing starts rose 1.5% to 0.598mn, compared to a consensus estimate of 0.600mn. Looking further into the details, single-family starts are down -3.0%, while multi-unit homes grew by +25.5%.In August permits rose by 2.7%, to 579K. July’s permits were revised to 564K from 560K. Going forward there could be some downside risks to this […]
Industrial production grew by +0.8% in August, compared to a consensus forecast of +0.7%, and a previous reading of +0.5%. Much of this growth is attributable to increased manufacturing stemming from the US government’s Cash for Clunkers program. The capacity utilization rate rose to 69.6 from a revised 69.0 in July. The increment in IP […]
August’s CPI and Core-CPI were up +0.4% and +0.1%, respectively. This compares to a consensus estimate of +0.4% for the headline and +0.1% for the core number. August’s headline number faced some pressure from increasing fuel costs (+4.6%) during the month that were partially offset by a much smaller increase in food prices. The pricing […]
July’s business inventories fell -1.0% to US$1.33bn, versus a Bloomberg consensus forecast of -0.9%. On a year over year basis the index has fallen -11.8%. June’s release was revised down to -1.4% from -1.1%. In July the inventory to sales ratio decline to 1.36, and is its lowest level since October 2008. It is widely […]
August’s Retail Sales rose 2.7%, compared to a consensus forecast of +2.0% and a previous reading in July of -0.1%. The ex-autos component of retail sales came in at 1.1%, versus a consensus forecast of +0.4% and a previous reading of -0.6% in July. Therefore, what is typically a bump in sales due to better […]
Lloyds List, a leading maritime and transport news terminal, reported the results of the first major shipping industry sentiment survey since the beginning of the economic downturn that was conducted by Norton Rose. The survey “has painted a bleak picture of the sector with the vast majority of companies predicting that economic conditions will get […]
In retrospect, the widespread panic that engulfed the world’s financial markets after the fall of Lehman Brothers may have been somewhat overblown considering the actual long-term impact of the event, which was significantly mitigated through innovative monetary policy. But at the time, this did not prevent an almost immediate shut-down of credit markets around the […]
After last week’s relatively light economic calendar, the market faces a deluge of data from nearly every facet of the economy. With that said this week’s most closely watched release will likely be Tuesday’s retail sales announcement, which is expected to show a +2.0% gain on the back of increased auto-sales and higher gas prices, […]