American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.797022; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.153658; American Dollar to Euro = 1.199276; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.008886; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.050730.

Gasoline rose to a two-year high as Tropical Storm Harvey hit the U.S. Gulf coast again after already knocking out a fifth of the nation’s refining capacity. Motiva Enterprises LLC’s Port Arthur refinery, the country’s biggest, was said to be shutting because of severe flooding. The disruption helped send motor fuel as much as 3.3 percent higher in New York, while the resulting reduction in demand from plants hit by the storm kept crude near a five-week low. After drenching Texas, Harvey regained strength over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and crashed ashore again Wednesday in southwest Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center. “The market focus seems to be on the quantity of refinery capacity shut-ins and potential to hit oil demand,” said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich. Click Read More below for additional detail.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 0.5% in September after rising 2.1% in August. In September, the index equaled 118.8 (2015=100) versus 118.2 in August. “The latest gain put tonnage at the highest level since August 2019 and the third highest level on record,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “This is another example of how the contract freight market remains strong despite weakness in the spot market this year. During the third quarter, tonnage increased 0.5% over the second quarter while increasing 5.6% over the same period in 2021. That was the largest quarterly year-over-year increase since the second quarter of 2018.” Compared with September 2021, the SA index increased 5.5%, which was the thirteenth straight year-over-year gain. In August, the index was up 6.7% from a year earlier. Year-to-date through September, compared with the same period in 2021, tonnage was up 4%.