Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 10/06/17

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 2.3% in October after rising 0.8% in September. In October, the index equaled 116.3 (2015=100) versus 119.1 in September. "For-hire truck tonnage saw the largest single monthly decrease in October since the start of the pandemic,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The decrease fits with the anecdotal reports of a muted fall freight season. It also coincides with a slowing economy. Housing is a weak spot in freight in addition to a slowing in personal consumption of goods. While factory related freight is holding up better than other areas, it is also decelerating.” Compared with October 2021, the SA index increased 2.8%, which was the fourteenth straight year-over-year gain, but the smallest gain since April. In September, the index was up 5.7% from a year earlier. Year-to-date through October, compared with the same period in 2021, tonnage was up 3.9%.

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.572; Month Ago: $3.335; Year Ago: $2.678. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $3.979; Month Ago: $3.678; Year Ago: $2.889.

Futures added 0.3 percent in New York after dropping 0.8 percent the previous two sessions. U.S. inventories slid by 7.8 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report Tuesday, while a Bloomberg survey also forecast a decline. The Energy Information Administration marginally boosted its estimates for American production in 2017 and 2018. “The recovery this morning is most likely in anticipation of a sixth inventory decline in crude oil this afternoon” when the EIA releases its weekly stockpiles report, said Ole Sloth Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen. Gains will be capped by a stronger dollar, he said. Click Read More below for additional detail.