Recent Updates
- ** New Zealand's jobs online report has been delayed by the source, MBIE, until 6:00 PM ET 4/26.**
- New Zealand: Foreign Currency Assets & Liabilities & Currency Flows (Mar); Australia: Labor Force Survey (Mar), Import/Export Price Indexes, SME Business Survey (Q1), Cash Flow Statements, Government Finance Statistics (2017)
- Japan: Input Output Prices, Lease Contracts (Mar), First 10 Days Trade (Apr), International Trade (Mar-Final)
- Brunei: International Trade (Dec); Korea: GDP (Q1); China:
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Japan Shows Very Moderate Growth As Trade War Clouds Gather
Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rose in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March...
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
by Tom Moeller April 23, 2013
The price of regular gasoline held last week at $3.54 per gallon (-8.6% y/y). That followed eight weeks of decline from a $3.78 per gallon peak. The norm for this time of year, as driving picks up seasonally, is for prices to begin rising. Haver Analytics constructs seasonal factors to account for seasonal volatility and the adjusted price also held w/w at $3.33 per gallon.
The price for a barrel of light sweet crude oil fell to $87.97 per barrel (-14.6% y/y), the lowest price since early-December. Yesterday prices improved slightly to $88.76. Brent crude oil prices fell to $98.23 per barrel (-16.2% y/y) last week but improved to $99.65 yesterday.
The recent surge in natural gas prices shows no sign of letting up. Prices rose further last week to $4.26 per mmbtu (128.7% y/y) and continued higher to $4.33 yesterday.
The demand for gasoline fell 3.3 y/y last week. Residual fuel oil needs, used for heating, fell by one-quarter y/y but distillate demand increased 2.9% y/y. Inventories of crude oil & petroleum products rose 1.0% y/y.
The energy price data are reported by the U.S. Department of Energy and can be found in Haver's WEEKLY database. The daily figures are in DAILY and the gasoline demand figures are in OILWKLY.
Weekly Price | 04/22/13 | 04/15/13 | 04/08/13 | Y/Y% | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Retail Regular Gasoline ($ per Gallon, Regular) | 3.54 | 3.54 | 3.61 | -8.6 | 3.62 | 3.52 | 2.78 |
Light Sweet Crude Oil, WTI ($ per bbl.) | 87.97 | 93.40 | 94.93 | -14.6 | 94.20 | 95.14 | 79.51 |
Natural Gas ($/mmbtu) | 4.26 | 4.14 | 4.02 | 128.7 | 2.75 | 3.99 | 4.00 |