The Barnum & Bailey And The Biden Family Circus, Part 2: Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Recession talk: continues. "Shallow and delayed."

JOLTS: this is simply incredible. Link here. For December, 2022, JPow's policies not destroying the job market as fast as he wants. It's an interesting recession -- job openings surging and hires "maintained."

• The number of job openings increased to 11.0 million on the last business day of December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. 
• Over the month, the number of hires and total separations changed little at 6.2 million and 5.9 million, respectively. 
• Within separations, quits (4.1 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.5 million) changed little. 
• In December, the largest increases in job openings were in accommodation and food services (+409,000), retail trade (+134,000), and construction (+82,000). 
• The number of job openings decreased in information (-107,000).
• Hires In December, the number and rate of hires changed little at 6.2 million and 4.0 percent, respectively. Hires changed little in all industries.

Weekly EIA petroleum report, link here:

• US crude oil in commercial storage increased by a whopping 4.1 million bbls; crude oil in storage now a whopping 4% above the five-year average. Who wudda thought -- all that talk about peak oil in the 1990s;
• days supply will be reported later; currently running at historic highs -- greater than four weeks of crude oil supply;
  
• US imports of crude oil, actually showed a healthy increase, up over 7 million bopd last week; one generally sees a 6-handle on imports, so 7.3 million bopd imported is interesting;
• refiners operating at 85.7%
• gasoline and distillate fuel production both increased last week
• distillates in storage increased by 2.3 million bbls but still remain 17% below the 5-year average, though that's better -- barely -- than the usually reported 20% below the 5-year average
• jet fuel delivered -- this is the most important metric -- was up -- but just barely -- up 0.6% compared with same four-week period last year -- business travel not yet returning.

WTI: drops fourteen cents; trading at $78.73. 

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