Catastrophic Texas Weather Depresses WTI Oil Price
August 28, 2017
The Texas coast is experiencing record flooding. West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped 0.8% to $47.49 per barrel. The Dallas Fed manufacturing index will be reported later today but is a dated report already in light of Hurricane Harvey’s damage. The U.S. advance trade deficit estimate also arrives today.
The speeches by Draghi and Yellen at the Jackson Hole Symposium did nothing to arrest recent dollar weakness. The U.S. currency accordingly opened the new week with a soft tone, depreciating 0.4% against the yuan and sterling, 0.2% versus the Swiss franc and 0.1% vis-a-vis the euro, loonie, Australian dollar and kiwi. Gold rose 0.4% to $1,303 per ounce.
The U.K. market is closed for the summer bank holiday. In other countries in Europe, stocks have lost 0.4% in Germany and Switzerland, 0.3% in France and Spain, and 0.1% in Greece. Japan’s Nikkei and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed unchanged. Stocks rose 0.9% in China and 0.7% in India but fell 0.6% in Australia, 0.5% in New Zealand and 0.4% in South Korea.
The 10-year German bund yield edged up a basis point to 0.38%, while the Japanese 10-year JGB remained at zero percent.
On-year M3 money growth in Euroland slowed sharply to 4.5% in July from 5.0% in June and averaged 4.8% in May-July after 5.0% in February-April. Growth in private sector credit dipped to 3.0% from 3.1%.
Industrial profits in China were 16.5% greater in July than a year earlier, down from a 19.1% advance in June. The year-to-July increase of 21.2% was down from 22.0% in June, 22.7% in May, 24.4% in April, 28.3% in March and 31.5% in February.
Italy’s composite business confidence index improved to a reading in April of 108.1 from 107.8 in July, 107.4 in June and 107.0 in May. Consumer confidence jumped to 110.8 last month from 106.9 in June.
Swiss jobs grew 0.5% in the second quarter.
Sweden registered a SEK 0.5 billion trade deficit in July, but the year-to-date surplus of SEK 3.5 billion was roughly three times greater than a year earlier. Swedish retail sales in August jumped 0.9% on month and accelerated to a 3.7% on-year advance.
Finnish consumer confidence remained quite strong in August, posting a score of 23.5 after 22.8 in July and well above its long-term average reading of 12.1.
On-year Irish retail sales growth slowed to 2.1% in July from 4.1% in June.
Copyright 2017, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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