Nice statistical improvement in the railway volumes

Weekly Traffic of Major U.S. Railroads

The line 17, Motor Vehicles & Equipment is up by 8.9% , it is nice,but the 2008 avarage was 16147 , and compared to that the DROP is -12%.

Not so nice.
It is improving compared to the bottom,but it is way lower than the peak.

The best investment:commodity

nstitutional investment in commodities at record levels: Barclays
New York 10 December 2009 19:24

Just over a year after the biggest financial crash since the Great Depression, financial investors are pouring record amounts of cash into commodities and are likely to increase their investments next year, according to Barclays Capital.

Institutional investors are believed to have put a record $60 billion into commodities in 2009

What will be the price of the oil in 2010?

Interesting data from China

From the Forbes:

In the first nine years of this decade China added an average of $1.50 in new credit to the economy to produce each incremental dollar of output. With so much money chasing domestic investments, that ratio has jumped to $7 of fresh credit for each additional dollar of GDP this year, estimates Pivot Capital Management, a Monaco hedge fund.

Like the US on the best day of the house bubble .

Best railway volume of the year (in the US)

Amazing

The Motor Vehicles & Equipment is up by 15%!

Of course , it is just smoke and mirror,compared the 47 weeks avarage of 2008,it is down by 32%.

Interesting articla about the Chinese overcapacity

Have to read for everyone.

Overcapacity in China
Causes, Impacts and Recommendations

US saving rate-October of 2009

PERSONAL INCOME AND OUTLAYS: OCTOBER 2009

Personal income increased $30.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI)
increased $45.7 billion, or 0.4 percent, in October
...
Private wage and salary disbursements increased $2.1 billion in October, in contrast to a decrease of
$6.2 billion in September. Goods-producing industries' payrolls decreased $3.3 billion, compared with
a decrease of $6.8 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $3.6 billion, compared with a decrease
of $0.3 billion. Services-producing industries' payrolls increased $5.4 billion, compared with an
increase of $0.6 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements increased $0.6 billion, in contrast
to a decrease of $1.7 billion.

...
Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 4.4 percent in October,
compared with 4.6 percent in September.

So,there is an increase in the "disposable personal income" by $45.7 billion , but the wages are up only by $2.1 billion .

Where is the diference?
The biggest part of the increase comming from the Other personal income.
And this contain the Proprietors income,renting income,dividens and so on.
So,the real income came to the asset owners,and they are tend to be the small percentage of the customers.
The new income will not generate any comsumption.

The best US railway volume up to date

Weekly Traffic of Major U.S. Railroads
For the Week Ending November 21, 2009

Line 17.Motor Vehicles & Equipment droped only -1.7% compared to the same week of 2008!
And the summary lines are showing simillar small drops.
Of course,the week 46 was week in 2008,the avarage volume on the first 46 week was 16 356 in 2008.

So,in reality it is not a big improvement, but it is all that we have

ATA truck index-October 2009 (US)

ATA Truck Tonnage Index Dipped 0.2 Percent in October

ARLINGTON, VA — The American Trucking Associations’ advance seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 0.2 percent in October, following a 0.3 percent contraction in September. The latest decline lowered the SA index to 103.6 (2000=100) from the revised 103.8 in September. The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 109.6 in October, up 1.6 percent from September.



Compared with October 2008, SA tonnage fell 5.2 percent, which was the best year-over-year showing since November 2008. In September, the index was down 7.3 percent from a year earlier.

On the top the index was roughtly 115.
So,we can see 12% drop in the transport requirement.
The Volvo sales droped by 50% compared to 2008,so we can expect an increase in the truck sales no later than the midle of 2010(if we consider 14-16% excess capacity on the peak)

The connection between the Chinese car and petrol sales

China's booming car sales, falling gas usage stump analysts

"Car sales in China are booming [in the third quarter], but gasoline sales seem to be stuck in the slow lane," wrote Standard Chartered analysts headed by Stephen Green in Shanghai .
...
Assuming most vehicles older than 10 years are scrapped, China 's car stock this year is set to rise about 24% to 32 million vehicles if sales remain on track in the fourth quarter.

That compares with a 10% rise in gasoline consumption for the first half of the year, according to data from China Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals, an energy-industry publication cited by Standard Chartered.

Green says the gap between rising car ownership and fuel demand can be also explained by improving efficiency.

Indications are that consumers are retiring gas guzzlers in favor of more economical models.

Vehicles with engine sizes of less that 1.6 liters accounted for about 70% of all car sales so far this year, up from 62% from 2008, spurred by tax breaks and other government incentives.

I don't think that the discrepency could came from mistical carparks or similar things.

But to get correct data,the 24% increase in the quantity of the cars have to came with 12% efficiency increase,it mean that the new cars have to use half as much fuel compared to the old ones.

Or they buy more cars,and drive less.
Of course,this not make eny sense.You buy a car to use it.Or is it just an inflation hedge?Could you buy a car as an investment ?

EU air cargo

Europe’s Air Freight Falls 14 Percent

Overall freight traffic fell 14 percent in September compared to the same month a year ago, the AEA said, the smallest year-over-year decline since November 2008.

But the traffic also slipped 0.5 percent from August, the second straight month-to-month setback, which suggested the steady improvement in demand had peaked heading into the fall shipping season.

So,we pass the first peak of the "W" shaped recovery?

US railway volume - Week 43-44-45

About line 17.Motor Vehicles & Equipment:
AVARAGE volume of the first 45 weeks of 2009 :10 084 cartloads
Cumulative volume of the first 45 weeks of 2008 :16 404 cartloads
Volume on the week 43 : 13 997 cartloads
Volume on the week 44 : 13 717 cartloads
Volume on the week 45 : 14 619 cartloads


About the Containers/ Trailers volume:
There was an avarage of 226 940 Units in the first 45 weeks of 2008, and now we had 203 000-208 000 units in tha last three weeks.So,let say it is bellow by 10% compared to the avarage of 2008.


Link to the reports

Interesting data in the Chinese Corporate Goods Price Indices

Corporate Goods Price Indices(CGPI)

This is simple:the agricultural price index is on 100%.However it is just a small potion of the inflation,but I think it is the most important part of the inflation for the Communist party.
They could be more happy if the procesed product show improvement.