Friday, May 19, 2006

Quick Overview

  • The Federal Reserve needs to consider the lags with which interest rate changes affect the economy, Kansas City Fed Bank President Thomas Hoenig said on Friday, noting inflation already looked set to slow.

  • U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Friday he was confident the Federal Reserve will protect growth by keeping inflation in check, and denied the Bush administration was softening its strong-dollar policy.

  • Japan's GDP was up 0.5% in the first quarter of 2006 and up 3.0% for fiscal year 2005-2006, stronger than expected. The Bank of Japan agreed to keep the interest rate near zero.

  • YoY Producer prices in Germany were up 6.1% in April, the most in nearly 14 years.

  • Germany's Parliament approved increasing the value-added tax from 16% to 19%.

  • France's GDP was up 0.5% in the first quarter of 2006.

  • U.K.’s Treasury had a 1.4 billion pound surplus in April.

  • The USDA said there were 11.560 million head of cattle on feed on May 1st, up 8.6% YoY.

  • The USDA said there were 67.22 million pounds of frozen pork bellies in storage, down 25% YoY.

  • Frozen pork totaled 516.3 million pounds, down 8% YoY.

  • The USDA said there were 1.08 billion pounds of frozen orange juice concentrate in storage on April 30th, down 35% YoY.

  • The International Copper Study Group said that world production of copper exceeded consumption by 77,000 tons in the first two months of 2006.

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