Quick Overview

• The U.S. producer price index rose 0.3% in January and up 5.7% YoY. Excluding food and energy, prices were up .4% in January.
  
  

• The United States should focus on its global trade shortfall with the rest of the world and not solely on the two-way trade gap with China, the president of the Asian Development Bank said on Friday.
  
  

• Class 8 truck orders in North America are off to a roaring start in 2006, with January’s total reaching an all-time monthly high of 43,100 units.
  
  

• The University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment dropped from 91.2 to 87.4 in February.
  

• Google Inc. on Friday criticized the Bush administration's demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests as a misguided fishing expedition that threatens to ruin the company's credibility and reveal its closely guarded secrets.
  
  

• Dow-Jones Newswire reported that the Ag Secretary of Minas Gerais said that 15% of his state's coffee crop has been lost to dry weather. Half of Brazil's coffee crop comes from the state of Minas Gerais.
  
  

• The International Copper Study Group said that in the first eleven months of 2005, world copper demand exceeded production by 154,000 tons – this with demand down 1% YoY and production up 4% YoY.
  
  

• Japan's GDP increased 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2005, more than expected. For calendar year 2005, real GDP was up 2.8%. Japan's latest economic growth figures show that prices, as measured by the GDP deflator, were still declining in the October-December quarter, prompting fresh calls for the Bank of Japan to weigh carefully any decision to end its ultraeasy policy.
  

• Wholesale sales in Canada were up 0.4% in December. For 2005, wholesale sales were up 5.4%. Retail sales at Canada's large retailers were up 1.4% in December and up 5.9% for all of 2005.