Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 8/23/24

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $2.654 Month Ago: $2.530 Year Ago: $2.313 National Average Price for Diesel Current: $2.962 Month Ago: $2.955 Year Ago: $2.504

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 2.3% in October after rising 0.8% in September. In October, the index equaled 116.3 (2015=100) versus 119.1 in September. "For-hire truck tonnage saw the largest single monthly decrease in October since the start of the pandemic,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The decrease fits with the anecdotal reports of a muted fall freight season. It also coincides with a slowing economy. Housing is a weak spot in freight in addition to a slowing in personal consumption of goods. While factory related freight is holding up better than other areas, it is also decelerating.” Compared with October 2021, the SA index increased 2.8%, which was the fourteenth straight year-over-year gain, but the smallest gain since April. In September, the index was up 5.7% from a year earlier. Year-to-date through October, compared with the same period in 2021, tonnage was up 3.9%.

Futures lost as much as 1.5 percent in New York. Inventories probably rose 2.9 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before a government report later Thursday. Global equities and industrial metals also dropped after an upbeat U.S. growth outlook fueled the possibility of interest-rate hikes. U.S. crude inventories rose by 1.84 million barrels in the week through Feb. 9, data from the Energy Information Administration show. While analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect a further increase in this week’s numbers, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report a decline of 907,000 barrels. Click Read More below for additional information.