The euro fell to its lowest level in almost three weeks against the yen on speculation a new Irish government will seek to share the burden of rescuing the country’s financial system with senior bank bondholders.
The common currency retreated from a more than three-week high against the dollar with the Irish election result following a defeat this month for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party that threatens to limit her scope to tackle the region’s debt crisis. The yen touched a three-week high against the dollar on concern civil unrest spreading through the Middle East and North Africa will derail a recovery in the global economy.
“We’ve got a political shift in Ireland and Germany and a banking system that’s hooked on European Central Bank cash,” said Robert Rennie, Sydney-based chief currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp., Australia’s second-largest lender. “The euro is looking expensive.”
The euro fell to 112.01 yen as of 9:28 a.m. in Tokyo from 112.35 in New York last week, when it completed a 1.4 percent weekly drop. It touched 111.99 yen, the least since Feb. 8. The common currency declined to $1.3718 from $1.3754 on Feb. 25, when it reached $1.3838, the most since Feb. 2. The yen was at 81 one hour payday loan.65 against the dollar from 81.68 and traded as strong as 81.62, the most since Feb. 4.
Enda Kenny may lead a new coalition Irish government after the collapse of the banking system and an external bailout pushed the Fianna Fail party to a record election defeat. As of 10:30 p.m. in Dublin, 154 lawmakers had been elected to the 166- seat Dail, as the Irish parliament is known, according to broadcaster RTE’s website. Fine Gael had won 70 seats, Labour won 36 seats, Fianna Fail had 18 and Sinn Fein had 13.
Ireland Election
The Fine Gael leader wants to re-negotiate the interest rate on the emergency loans, speed up spending cuts to narrow the budget gap and share the cost burden with lenders’ senior bondholders.
U.S. officials will meet foreign counterparts in Geneva today to discuss the fate of Libya, including measures to pressure Muammar Qaddafi out of power while building ties to opposition leaders. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said for the first time yesterday that the U.S. has begun “reaching out” to Libyans organizing for a post-Qaddafi era.
Here I am celebrating
Companies that act as brokers for trucking services are gaining favor with investors as the 20- month-old rebound shifts into a new phase that’s less dependent on inventory restocking.
The so-called asset-lite truckers such as Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc. and C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. lease vehicles for businesses that need to ship goods, so they have more cost flexibility than companies that own and operate most of their trucks. Shares of these brokers have risen 6.9 percent since July 30, 2010, compared with a 1.5 percent decline for operators including Celadon Group Inc. and Werner Enterprises Inc., according to two new Bloomberg indexes.
“We are way past the early cycle rally,” and now see “sustainable elements to the recovery,” said Benjamin Hartford, transportation analyst at Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co., who co-wrote Baird’s 2011 freight-outlook report. As the rebound matures, investors will find “greater resiliency” in companies with flexible costs.
Trucking demand varies with the economy, accounting for 71 percent of the value, or $8.3 trillion, of U.S. goods shipped in 2007, according to the most recent data from the Department of Transportation.
The Baird report shows the recovery spanning 26 months so far, based on the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index, which hit a recession low in December 2008. That’s more than halfway through an average of 40 months, which the current expansion may exceed, Hartford said. The recession that ended in June 2009 was the longest since the 43-month slump during the Great Depression, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Expanding Economy
The U.S. economy likely will expand at a 3.2 percent rate this year, according to the median estimate of 63 economists surveyed in February by Bloomberg News, with exports and business spending on equipment and software poised to generate most of the growth, said Joseph Carson, director of economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York.
When the rebound began in the third quarter of 2009, growth was driven by government spending, along with companies that were building stockpiles and needed truckers to move their products. This made the operators more appealing to investors because their profits rise more quickly in this stage of recovery.
“I tend to favor the asset-based guys” early in the cycle, because they “are able to get rate increases as well as higher volumes,” said Kevin Sterling, an analyst in Richmond, Virginia, at BB&T Capital Markets.
Rising Stock
Indianapolis-based Celadon’s stock more than tripled to $14.79 at the end of last year from $4 payday loans for bad credit.47 on March 9, 2009, as the operator reported net income of $2.86 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $2.08 million in the January-March 2009 period.
Freight volumes peaked in September and have dropped 10 percent since then, as measured by the Cass Freight Shipments Index. Momentum for Celadon stock has slowed as well; it has fallen 2.6 percent since the end of December.
The Bloomberg U.S. Truckload Trucking Index tracks the performance of Celadon, Werner and seven other operators. The Bloomberg U.S. Non-Asset Based Trucking Index tracks Roadrunner, C.H. Robinson and six other brokers. The two indexes show that shares of the operators rose 25 percent between May 30, 2008, and July 31, 2010, compared with a 16 percent decline for the brokers.
The asset-heavy companies also outperformed in 2001 and 2002, coming out of the recession that ended in November 2001. As the recovery matured, the asset-lite truckers outperformed from 2003 to early 2008.
Slashing Costs
When freight volumes started to cool off in 2007, Roadrunner responded quickly to protect profits, adopting cuts that slashed its vehicle-leasing costs by 17 percent over two years.
“The advantage we have is we don’t run empty miles,” said Peter Armbruster, chief financial officer of the Cudahy, Wisconsin, company. If customers “go from needing to do eight trips instead of 10 between our Milwaukee terminal and southern California, we just do eight. It is more efficient.”
Inventory building aided economic growth for five consecutive quarters through the third period of 2010, when it contributed 1.61 percent to the 2.6 percent gain. When companies stopped adding to their stockpiles in the fourth quarter, the reduction subtracted 3.7 percent from growth, the most since the first quarter of 1988.
Adjust Expenditures
John Wiehoff, chief executive officer for Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based C.H. Robinson, said the broker’s lower-cost model allows it to adjust expenditures rapidly in response to demand.
“We’re very proud that we were able to manage through the recession with an earnings increase in each of the past two years,” he said on a Feb. 1 conference call with investors. “We think that’s a pretty visible statement about our business model.”
Brokers like C.H. Robinson “have higher returns, very little debt and a lot of cash on the balance sheet,” along with “more financial flexibility” and fewer capital-expenditure requirements, according to Sterling, who said BB&T Capital Markets is recommending investors purchase the Minnesota company and Roadrunner.
C.H. Robinson announced in December a 16 percent increase in its cash dividend to 29 cents a share. It had $398.6 million in cash at year-end, compared with $11.1 million for Celadon.
“The asset-lite guys can act countercyclically,” said Peter Nesvold, managing director and senior equity research analyst in New York at Jefferies & Co. “As fundamentals start to improve, we have a long way we can ride.”
Twenty months ahead of the 2012 election, President Barack Obama is traveling the nation, vying for the public’s attention one state at a time, while international crises and budget fights compete with his plans for economic revival.
On Tuesday, Obama curried favor with small businesses in politically important Ohio, pushing his plans to boost American competitiveness by increasing spending on sectors like education and infrastructure. That agenda, however, is running up against opposition from some Republican governors in cash-strapped states, and GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill, whose demands for deep spending cuts raise the prospect of a federal government shutdown.
The president’s domestic initiatives have also been overshadowed by the turmoil in the Middle East. Tuesday’s trip came amid an escalation of violence in Libya, where government-backed security forces clashed with protesters, and news that four Americans were killed at the hands of pirates off the coast of Africa.
Since his State of the Union address last month, Obama has traveled away from Washington at least once a week, mostly stopping in political battleground states that will be crucial to his re-election bid, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He plans a trip to Florida next week.
As was the case during the 2008 campaign, Obama aides are willing to forego national media headlines in favor of mostly positive coverage in local media outlets in regions the president visits. They’re also courting the press in swing states even when Obama is not on the road, inviting reporters from local television stations in Virginia, Wisconsin and Ohio to the White House for interviews last week.
Keeping with his pledge to focus more on jobs following his party’s sweeping defeats in the midterm elections, Obama’s message to swing state voters is strictly economic. He’s touting cuts to some domestic programs in his proposed budget as a way to bring down the deficit, while also citing the need for increased spending on education, infrastructure and research as a way to boost job growth and help the country compete in the global economy.
“By cutting back on what we don’t need, we can invest in the future. We can invest in the things that are critical to our long-term success,” Obama said Tuesday to more than 100 small business leaders gathered at Cleveland State University.
However, Obama’s calls for increased spending run counter to the deep budget cutting steps being taken by governors in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Indiana and Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich is backing state legislation that would end collective bargaining for public employees. Kasich greeted Obama at the airport Tuesday upon his arrival in Cleveland.
Supporters of the Ohio bill, as well as a similar measure backed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, say the measures would help control spending and provide cash-strapped states greater flexibility.
Opponents of the bill were expected to protest in Ohio’s capital Tuesday. Similar protests in Wisconsin have attracted national attention, and Obama himself waded into the dispute last week by arguing that limiting bargaining rights “seems like more of an assault on unions.”
Obama also faces budget battles back in Washington, where the lawmakers are debating a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30. The Republican-led House passed a bill early Saturday that cuts $61 billion for hundreds of federal program. Though the bill faces longer odds in the Senate, Obama has threatened a veto should the measure land on his desk.
If no compromise over the budget is reached by March 4, parts of the government could shut down.
Obama has said the drastic cuts could cause the still fragile economic recovery to stale, and make it harder for small business owners, like the ones he spoke to in Cleveland, to access capital and hire new workers.
“It’s small businesses like your that help drive America’s economic growth,” Obama said Tuesday. “When our small businesses do well, then America does well.”
Administration officials also plan to hold additional forums with small business owners across the country. Sessions are planned for Atlanta, Boston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Silicon Valley as well as Austin, Texas; Durham, N.C., and Boulder, Colo.
Growth in Europe’s services and manufacturing industries accelerated to the fastest pace in more than four years in February.
A composite index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers in the 17-nation euro region in both industries rose to 58.4 from 57 in January, London-based Markit Economics said in an initial estimate today. That was the highest since July 2006 and above the 56.9 forecast by economists in a Bloomberg News survey. A figure above 50 indicates expansion.
“Growth has accelerated sharply since hitting a low last October, with manufacturing continuing to lead the renewed upturn in February as production rose at a pace only marginally below the 10-year peak seen in April of last year,” Markit said in a statement.
The euro-area economy is gaining strength after expanding less than economists forecast in the fourth quarter. With companies stepping up output and hiring to meet export demand, consumers are growing more optimistic even as governments toughen budget cuts cheapest personal loan rates. PPR SA, the French owner of Gucci, on Feb. 17 forecast “robust revenue growth” in 2011.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has powered the region’s expansion as countries from Spain to Ireland stepped up spending cuts to plug budget deficits. German investor confidence rose for a fourth month in February and unemployment dropped to the lowest in almost two decades last month. In France, business confidence increased more than economists forecast last month.
Ameren Missouri electric customers could soon see rates rolled back by hundreds of millions of dollars after separate court orders suspending rate increases that were granted by the Missouri Public Service Commission over the past two years.
Cole County Circuit Judge Paul Wilson issued the most recent decision, a complex 50-page legal opus that set the potential rate rollback into motion.
Whatever the outcome and whenever the matter is settled, it almost certainly won’t involve any kind of sizable refund for Ameren customers. It could, however, reshape electric rates beginning next month and have serious financial consequences for St. Louis-based Ameren.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday afternoon, the company estimated it could lose $300 million between now and August if rates are lowered back to 2007 levels as some big energy customers believe they should.
But Ameren believes it will prevail. Rita Holmes-Bobo, a spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement that the utility would “vigorously defend” its position, though she declined to comment on Ameren’s next step.
To understand the reasoning for a potential rate rollback and the confusion generated by the court orders requires an understanding of the chronology of events.
The saga goes back to January 2009 when the PSC approved an 8 percent, or $163 million, rate increase for Ameren Missouri, then called AmerenUE.
Noranda Aluminum, by far the utility’s biggest customer, and Public Counsel Lewis Mills, whose office represents Missouri consumers, appealed the PSC order in Pemiscot County Circuit Court in Missouri’s Bootheel. In September 2009, Judge Stephen R. Mitchell issued a temporary stay of the rate increase.
But Mitchell’s stay applied only to Noranda, which had argued it was in financial turmoil at the time amid the recession and depressed aluminum prices. The judge ordered the company to pay an amount equivalent of the rate increase each month into a fund pending the outcome of the legal case. The money would go back to Noranda if the case was decided in its favor, or to Ameren if it prevailed.
Six months later, the PSC approved another rate increase for Ameren, this one for 10 percent, or $226.3 million. Mills, Noranda and several other industrial customers including Anheuser-Busch, Doe Run and Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge again appealed the decision, this time in Cole County Circuit Court.
Wilson issued an order suspending that rate increase in December, just days before his term expired. But unlike Mitchell, he ordered the rates suspended for all Ameren customers, not just those that filed the appeal.
The order also required the industrial customers to post bonds totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars before the stay would take effect.
Mills and the industrial energy consumers tried to negotiate a settlement with Ameren before the companies posted bonds that would make Wilson’s order effective and trigger a rate rollback. Those efforts were unsuccessful.
The companies posted the required bonds on Tuesday, setting the stage for a legal and regulatory scrum in the hearing rooms at the PSC and in the courts.
That’s because judicial orders requiring utility rate rollbacks are virtually unprecedented in Missouri. Even Wilson noted as much in his December order, writing that “we
President Barack Obama’s search for innovative ideas to spur job creation has led him to the West Coast to brainstorm with some of the brightest technological minds in the country.
Obama was touring Intel Corp.’s semiconductor manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, Ore., on Friday and learning about programs the company has to encourage studies in science, technology, engineering and math, and get people the skills they need to compete for new high-tech jobs.
He also was speaking about education’s role in fostering job creation and innovation.
Continuing his outreach to business leaders, Obama met over dinner in the San Francisco Bay area Thursday with a dozen top innovators, including Eric Schmidt of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Steve Jobs of Apple, who is on his third medical leave as concerns about his health mount. Also present were the chief executives of Yahoo!, Oracle, NetFlix and Twitter, and the president of Stanford University.
Obama is pushing for new spending on innovation, education, high-speed rail, faster Internet service and other programs that he says will better position the U.S. to compete against other nations.
But Republicans are pushing back, arguing that government spending without restraint is actually hindering job creation. They want to slash the budget. The Republican-controlled House was also nearing a vote on whether to do just that by cutting $61 billion from government spending this year.
“We’re broke,” says House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, about the country’s finances.
As that money fight raged in Washington, Obama left town Thursday on the latest in a series of weekly trips he’s been taking to promote the competitiveness agenda he outlined in the State of the Union address.
A seal of approval from Silicon Valley’s leading innovators could bolster his sales pitch.
At the Woodside, Calif., home of venture capitalist John Doerr, Obama and the innovators brainstormed ideas. White House spokesman Jay Carney said afterward that Obama wants to keep exchanging ideas with the group “so we can work as partners to promote growth and create good jobs in the United States.”
Obama discussed his proposals to spend on research and development and to expand incentives for companies to grow and hire, Carney said. The president also talked about his goal of doubling exports within five years to help support and create new jobs, his plans for spending on education and a new initiative to assist small businesses and start-up companies, he said.
The group also discussed ways to encourage people to study science, technology, engineering and math and to pursue careers in those fields, he said.
In Oregon on Friday, Obama was being led on the tour of Intel’s facility by CEO Paul Otellini, who has criticized the president’s economic policies. Otellini said as recently as September that the administration created too uncertainty for businesses and had failed to encourage job growth or consumer confidence.
Otellini was among a group of CEOs who met privately with Obama in Washington last year.
Despite the criticism, Intel is working with the administration on the education front.
Last year, Intel announced a 10-year, $200 million commitment to promote math and science education in the U.S. It also is one of four companies that are working to help meet Obama’s goal of getting the U.S. to the top in science and math education over a decade.
Sales at retailers rose less than forecast in January, showing it will be difficult for American consumers to sustain last quarter’s pickup in spending without bigger gains in employment.
Purchases increased 0.3 percent, the smallest gain since a drop in June, according to Commerce Department figures today in Washington. Other reports showed manufacturing in the New York area accelerated and confidence among home builders stagnated.
The sales data also indicated winter snowstorms may have played a role in the slowdown as Americans stayed away from restaurants and home-improvement stores. While Gap Inc. and Macy’s Inc. were among retailers topping analysts’ estimates as promotions lured post-holiday shoppers, rising food and gasoline prices may have caused households to cut back on non-essentials.
“There is some momentum in consumer spending, but it’s not particularly robust,” said Kevin Logan, chief U.S. economist at HSBC Securities USA Inc. in New York, who correctly forecast the gain. “Things are recovering, but they’re not really healthy,” he said, and in addition, “the severe weather last month curtailed all kinds of outdoor activity.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index retreated from a 32-month high after the reports, falling 0.4 percent to 1,327.35 at 11:54 a.m. in New York. The S&P Supercomposite Retailing Index decreased 0.1 percent.
Sales were projected to increase 0.5 percent based on the median forecast of 79 economists in the Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from a gain of 1.1 percent to a drop of 0.5 percent. The December increase in sales was revised down to 0.5 percent from the 0.6 percent previously estimated.
Fed View
Federal Reserve policy makers are among those saying bigger gains in employment are needed to ensure American consumers sustain spending. While unemployment fell to 9 percent in January, from 9.4 percent in December, it has been 9 percent or higher since May 2009, the longest period of elevated joblessness since monthly records began in 1948.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and fellow policy makers are awaiting further proof of a durable pickup in the labor market that will lift growth. That’s one reason why they are pressing ahead with a second round of monetary stimulus worth $600 billion.
Manufacturing in the region covered by the Fed Bank of New York expanded this month at the fastest pace since June, another report showed. The bank’s general economic index rose to 15.4 from 11.9 in January. Readings greater than zero signal growth in the so-called Empire State Index, which covers New York, northern New Jersey, and southern Connecticut.
Builder Pessimism
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo said its sentiment index registered a reading of 16 in February for the fourth consecutive month, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Readings below 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.
Also today, figures from the Labor Department showed import prices climbed 1.5 percent in January, propelled by higher costs for commodities like food and fuel.
Eight of 13 major retail categories showed an increase in demand last month, led by auto dealers, grocery stores and service stations, according to the Commerce Department’s figures. Filling station sales advanced 1.4 percent.
The data, which aren’t adjusted for inflation, may have been boosted by rising gasoline prices. Regular fuel in January reached an average $3.10 a gallon, or 11 cents more than December, according to AAA, the nation’s biggest motoring organization.
Auto Sales
Sales climbed 0.5 percent at automobile dealers, consistent with industry figures that showed car purchases climbed last month to a 12.54 million unit annual pace that was the best since the government’s cash-for-clunkers program in August 2009.
Demand dropped 2.9 percent at building-material stores, the most since May, and restaurant receipts dropped 0.7 percent, the biggest decrease since March 2009. In contrast, the 1.3 percent gain at grocery stores was the biggest since August.
“Our results underscored signs that consumer confidence continues to improve,” Co-Chief Executive Officer Walter Robb said on a Feb. 9 conference call.
Winter storms spread from the Midwest and the South to New England, covering 71 percent of the country with snow on Jan. 12, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Cutting Forecasts
Excluding autos, gasoline and building materials, which are the figures used to calculate gross domestic product, sales increased 0.4 percent after a 0.1 percent drop the prior month that was previously reported as a gain.
January figures combined with the revisions prompted some economists to cut forecasts for consumer spending this quarter. David Greenlaw, chief financial economist at Morgan Stanley, said purchases will rise 2.7 percent this quarter, down from his prior estimate of 3.3 percent.
“Consumer can’t quite keep up with exuberant expectations,” Mike Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Securities LLC in New York, said in a note to clients. Feroli said it will “be difficult” to achieve his forecast of 3.5 percent, and said spending is tracking closer to 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent.
Household purchases climbed at a 4.4 percent pace in the last three months of 2010, the biggest increase in four years.
OTTAWA
Consumer confidence rose in February to the highest level in eight months as decreasing unemployment lifted Americans’ spirits.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment for the month climbed to 75.1 from 74.2 in January, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Another report showed the trade gap widened in December for a second month on a jump in oil imports.
The sentiment data showed households’ perceptions of the economy and job market turned positive this month for the first time in seven years, signaling consumer spending may keep contributing to the expansion. The increase in confidence and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation helped stocks advance, extending a second straight weekly gain.
“At the end of the day, people spend on how they feel about their job prospects, and additional gains in confidence are likely to provide further support for spending,” said Millan Mulraine, senior U.S. strategist at TD Securities in New York, who projected the sentiment index would climb to 75.
Rising share prices may also be helping as the report showed confidence among affluent Americans, those making more than $75,000 a year, increased to the highest level since the last recession began in December 2007. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.6 percent to 1,329.15 at the 4 p.m. close in New York.
The median forecast of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected the sentiment gauge would climb to 75. Estimates ranged from 71.5 to 78.5. The index averaged 89 in the five years leading up the recession that began in December 2007.
Current Conditions
The sentiment measure’s current conditions gauge, which reflects Americans’ perceptions of their financial situation and whether they consider it a good time to buy big-ticket items like cars, increased to 86.8, the highest since January 2008, from 81.8 the prior month.
The index of consumer expectations six months from now decreased to 67.6 from 69.3.
Nonetheless, Americans grew more optimistic about job prospects. The report showed the share of Americans who expected unemployment to fall over the next 12 months exceeded the share of those who projected an increase by 8 points, the first positive reading in seven years and highest level since 1984, according to economists at Credit Suisse in New York.
Unemployment Declines
While employers added a fewer-than-forecast 36,000 jobs to payrolls in January, the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9 percent, the lowest since April 2009, according to Labor Department figures released Feb. 4. Joblessness dropped to 9.4 percent in December from 9.8 percent the previous month, in the biggest two-month decrease since 1958.
“The sharp 0.8 percent drop in the unemployment rate the past two months is resonating across consumers’ current view and future prospects for the labor market,” the Credit Suisse economists led by Neal Soss wrote in a note to clients instant personal loans guaranteed.
Household purchases, which make up about 70 percent of the economy, grew at a 4.4 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, the fastest since the first three months of 2006, Commerce Department figures showed Jan. 28.
Sales, Confidence
“Our results underscored signs that consumer confidence continues to improve,” Walter Robb, the grocer’s co-chief executive officer, said Feb. 9 during a conference call with analysts. Sales are “the greatest indicator of people’s confidence,” he said.
Also today, a report from the Commerce Department showed the trade deficit widened in December for a second month as the cost of imported oil climbed to the highest level in two years.
The gap grew 5.9 percent to $40.6 billion, in line with the $40.5 billion median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Excluding petroleum, the shortfall shrank to $15.3 billion, the smallest since March.
For all of 2010, the trade gap surged 43 percent, the biggest jump in a decade, as the recovery in spending led to record imports of consumer goods. At the same time, manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc. benefited from a drop in the value of the dollar that drove the biggest annual increase in exports in two decades, capped by record demand in December from China and newly industrialized Asian nations.
Growth Overseas
Asia, led by China, and Latin America are growing very fast, and exports to those regions will continue going up,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Exports increased 1.8 percent to $163 billion, the most since July 2008, led by sales of autos, chemicals and industrial machines.
The gap in trade will probably stabilize around current levels as growing U.S. demand also draws in more imports to replenish depleted inventories, Gault said.
Imports rose 2.6 percent to $203.5 billion, the most since October 2008. The value of crude oil purchases increased to $22.5 billion from $19.8 billion. The average price per barrel of imported crude reached $79.78, the highest since October 2008.
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