New manufacturers orders, vehicle sales, unemployment claims, rents, oil prices

This component is going nowhere:

Still trying to catch up from the oil capex collapse of 2016 and covid collapse:

Not good:

This is an all time low as people scramble to get extra jobs to deal with higher prices,
like paying rent, for example:

Oil prices taking a breather with the announcements of releases from strategic petroleum reserves.

Price direction, however, is instead set by Saudi OSP premiums to benchmarks which were just raised for the 3rd month and this time to record highs.

This puts a relentless upward bias to prices until Saudi pricing changes, and will propel what’s call inflation as well. And the higher prices can also trigger a sharp recession:

The Commodities Feed: Saudi OSP raised to record highs

Retail sales, Consumer sentiment, NY manufacturing survey

Gone flat post covid, adjusted for inflation:

The post covid slump continues, and now there are war disruptions:

US Consumer Sentiment Lowest since 2011
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the US fell to 59.7 in March of 2022 from 62.8 in February, below market forecasts of 61.4, preliminary estimates showed. It is the lowest reading since November of 2011, as inflation expectations rose sharply due to a surge in fuel prices exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The current economic conditions index fell to 67.8 from 68.2 while the expectations gauge sank to 54.4 from 59.4. The year-ahead expected inflation rate (5.4%) rose to its highest level since 1981, and expected gas prices posted their largest monthly upward surge in decades. Personal finances were expected to worsen in the year ahead by the largest proportion since the surveys started in the mid-1940 pointing out that the high inflation rate is impacting incomes.

Employment, oil

Still slowly working its way back to the pre covid trend:

New rigs continue to come online, but it won’t interfere with Saudi/Russian price setting until sufficient production comes online to reduce Saudi sales. And right now sales are going up, indicating that demand for oil at the Saudi’s prices is increasing, as the Saudis set price and let their refiners buy all they want at their posted prices:

As previously discussed, Saudi OSP’s (official selling price spreads vs benchmarks) are now set above ‘fair value’ imparting a continuous upward pressure on prices. If this policy continues prices will continue to rise and seriously disrupt markets as happened in 2008: