Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 10/13/17

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $2.591 Month Ago: $2.523 Year Ago: $2.290

Short term, oil-pricing volatility will continue. Traders will likely consider any forward interruption – perceived or actual – in Iranian crude export flow as upward pressure on global prices. If this happens and JCPOA is not immediately closed, (i.e., should those second and third possible scenarios I mentioned play out), there will be a pullback. Overall, other factors have been contributing to an increasing floor for the oil-pricing band, supported by continuing OPEC production problems in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Libya. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 2.1% in June after increasing 1.2% in May. In June, the index equaled 116.5 (2015=100) compared with 114.1 in May. “While the tonnage index increased in both May and June, it remains in recession territory,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The index continues to fall from a year earlier and is off 1.9% from its recent peak in September 2022. A multitude of factors have caused a recession in freight, including stagnant consumer spending on goods, lower home construction, falling factory output, and shippers consolidating freight into fewer shipments compared with the frenzy during the goods buying spree at the height of the pandemic. However, the magnitude of the year-over-year declines is improving, perhaps pointing to a bottom in the freight market.” Compared with June 2022, the SA index decreased 0.8%, which was the fourth straight year-over-year decrease. In May, the index was down 2.4% from a year earlier.