The major commodity indexes were down around 0.7% earlier today as mostly softer energy and base metal prices more than offset firmer gold and silver prices. In New York, NYMEX crude oil futures were down below $50 per barrel (-1.4%) earlier today with Bloomberg reporting “OPEC and its allies probably won’t go ahead with an emergency meeting, even as global supply piles up while the coronavirus wreaks havoc on demand.”

On the U.S. economic calendar this week, we’ll get new figures on job openings/labor turnover, consumer price inflation, retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilization, and consumer sentiment.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment situation report last week, U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 225,000 in January 2020 and the national unemployment rate edged up from 3.5% in December to 3.6% in January.

Total U.S. scrap exports – including all ferrous and nonferrous metals, recovered paper, plastics, rubber, glass, textiles, etc. – declined 5.5% year-on-year by volume in 2019 to 38.2 million metric tons, according to the latest trade data released by the Census Bureau last week.

Ferrous Scrap Exports U.S. ferrous scrap exports, excluding stainless steel and alloy steel, grew by a modest 1.2% in 2019 to nearly 15.9 million metric tons as improved shipments to Turkey, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and others more than offset weaker business with Egypt, China, and Mexico.