AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 5/25/18

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.752606; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.140689; American Dollar to Euro = 1.031083; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.007168; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.051484.

Growth in the U.S. economy boomed in 2018, slowed in 2019, and turned south in 2020 when COVID-19 started to spread widely in March. In 2019, trucks shipped 72.5% of all domestic tonnage, including an increase of 366 million tons over 2018. Also, across the northern and southern borders, trucks moved three-quarters of the value of trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Compared with previous recessions, trucking fared far better than the overall economy as the recession in the first half of 2020 was concentrated in the much less freight intensive, services sector. At the start of 2020, the U.S. remained in the longest economic expansion on record with the unemployment rate at 50-year lows. In the three primary categories of freight—retail, manufacturing, and housing construction—only manufacturing was struggling from an industry-specific recession in 2019. In January, retail sales notched a record high, and construction on new homes surged to its highest level in over a decade, according to the Census Bureau. Even manufacturing showed signs that it bottomed out in 2019, as the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index reported an expanding manufacturing sector in January and February after 5 months of contraction.

Oil prices, starting with a decrease on Thursday morning, restored the growth by the end of the day and finishes the week, trading up. May Brent futures were 74 cents or 1.06% up, at $70.27 for a barrel at the end of London ICE Futures trading on March,29. June future contracts are 58 cents, or 0.84% up, at $69.34 per barrel. May WTI futures grew in price by 56 cents or 0.87%, to $64.94 for a barrel on NYMEX.