Oil prices continued to fall yesterday. Reuters reports:
U.S. crude settled $1.62 lower at $54.02 a barrel after falling as low as $53.80, the lowest since June 2005. London Brent crude fell $1.49 at $53.69 a barrel.
News that oil flows had resumed along the Druzhba crude pipeline from Russia after a dispute with Belarus helped push U.S. oil down to $53.49 in electronic trading after hours.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a bigger-than-expected rise last week in distillate stocks, which include heating oil, in the world's biggest oil market.
The fall in oil prices should help reduce the US trade deficit further, after having fallen in November. From Reuters:
The trade deficit narrowed 1 percent in November to $58.2 billion, the smallest since July 2005, surprising many Wall Street analysts who had expected a wider trade gap...
U.S. exports of goods and services grew nearly 1 percent in November to a record $124.8 billion...
Lower oil prices, after a sharp run-up earlier in the year, also helped trim the trade gap.
Other economic news from the Reuters report:
A separate survey of top forecasters released on Wednesday pegged U.S. economic growth at 2.3 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, in the first and second quarters of this year...
In a separate report, the Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, jumped 16.6 percent to 671.1 for the week ended January 5...
A second Commerce Department report showed inventories at U.S. wholesalers climbed a much-stronger-than-expected 1.3 percent in November as stocks rose in most industries, including a 0.6 percent gain in the auto sector.
The fall in oil prices was not enough to reduce Britain's goods trade deficit in November, which grew to 7.193 billion pounds from a revised 6.601 billion pounds in October. British appetite for goods is also being reflected in rising shop prices, which rose at an annual rate of 2.28 percent in December, the fastest since March 2004.
It was a similar trade story across the English Channel, France reporting that its provisional seasonally-adjusted trade deficit widened to 2.834 billion euros in November from 2.794 billion in October. This came as French industrial production fell 0.2 percent in November.
Of course, if some countries are reporting trade deficits, others must be reporting surplus.
One such country is Canada. Reuters reports:
Canada's trade surplus widened more than expected in November to C$4.67 billion ($3.96 billion) from a revised C$3.76 billion in October as exports grew sharply after two straight months of declines, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday...
Exports rose 2.8 percent in November to C$38.14 billion, led by a rebound in automotive products shipments...
Imports, on the other hand, gained only 0.4 percent to C$33.48 billion as gains in energy and automotive imports offset a large drop in industrial goods and materials, Statscan said.
But when most people think of trade surplus, they think of China. Understandably so. From Xinhua Online:
China's trade surplus reached 177.47 billion US dollars in 2006, the General Administration of Customs said Wednesday.
Exports rose 27.2 percent from the previous year to 969.08 billion dollars, while imports were up 20 percent to 791.61 billion dollars.
The December surplus stood at 21 billion US dollars, a slight decline from November's 22.9 billion dollars.
Monthly imports for December were 73.1 billion US dollars, up 13.5 percent on the same month of 2005 while exports stood at 94.1billion US dollars, up 24.8 percent.
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