Jan 17. MLK day starts a quiet week/shipping data raises questions
–Light news week. China’s President Hu visits the US, heightening dollar/yuan issues. TIC data tomorrow.
–A lack of treasury auctions combined with about $15-20 billion Fed buybacks should be supportive of bond prices this week.
–While US equity markets remain well bid, as do commodity markets, I find it a bit puzzling that the Baltic Freight indexes have turned lower, and are near the nadir set in late 2008/early 2009. Especially since energy costs continue to move higher. Also the railfax report (link attached) while showing impressive yoy gains in freight traffic, seems to have slowed down in terms of rate of change. Further, the ‘Waste and Scrap’ shipments appear to have taken a turn down. Again, this is perhaps nothing but a cyclical phenomenon, but with the JOC Industrial Materials index near new highs, one would think that scrap shipments might be a bit stronger.
http://railfax.transmatch.com/
http://www.dryships.com/pages/report.asp
(cut and paste links for charts)
