Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 1/8/21

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 3.6% in May after decreasing 1% in April. In May, the index equaled 115.9 (2015=100) compared with 111.9 in April. “May was the first month since February 2023 that tonnage increased both sequentially and from a year earlier,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “While there was clearly an increase in freight before the Memorial Day holiday, it is still too early to say whether this is the start of a long-awaited recovery in the truck freight market.” April’s decrease was revised up slightly from our May 21 press release. Compared with May 2023, the index rose 1.5%, the first year-over-year gain in fifteen months. In April, the index was down 1.3% from a year earlier.

For a generation, the huge, whitewashed storage tanks at America’s largest oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, have stored almost nothing but Saudi crude. The plant is owned by Saudi Arabia’s state-run oil company, Aramco, and since it first bought a stake in 1988, the Motiva refinery guaranteed the kingdom a strategic foothold in the world’s largest energy market. The tankers carrying millions of barrels a month of Arab Light crude from Saudi export terminals to Port Arthur were testament to the strength of the energy and political ties binding Riyadh and Washington. All of a sudden, there are very few Saudi ships arriving in Texas. Since July, Aramco has constricted supply, attempting to drain the crude storage tanks at Motiva -- and many others across America -- part of a plan to lift oil prices, even at the cost of sacrificing its once prized U.S. market. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.799771; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.153349; American Dollar to Euro = 1.198653; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.009195; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.050173.