Oil Drops Relatively Dramatically
"The price of oil recorded its biggest weekly drop ever," the Associated Press reported over the weekend. But "experts won't go" so far as to "declare the energy bubble popped. ... Still, with oil recording yet another drop on Friday, some industry experts who just days ago thought there was more juice left in oil's meteoric run are reconsidering."

On Friday, "[l]ight, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents...to settle at $128.88 on the New York Mercantile Exchange — well below its trading record of more than $147 a week earlier."

Euro Area's May Trade Deficit
The 15 nations sharing the euro recorded a trade deficit of €4.6 billion (US$7.3 billion) in May 2008 after an April deficit of €2.5 billion, the European Union's Eurostat data agency reported on Friday. In May 2007, the eurozone's trade surplus was €1.4 billion.

Meanwhile, as imports in May 2008 rose 9 percent over one year to €133.3 billion, exports rose 4 percent to €128.4 billion.

The 27-nation EU showed a trade deficit of €21.5 billion in May of this year, up from a deficit of €15.4 billion in April and a shortfall of €14.7 billion in May 2007.

WTO Rules Against China in Auto-Parts Dispute
The World Trade Organization (WTO) "made public its first official condemnation of Chinese commercial practices" at the end of last week, releasing a ruling that sided with the U.S., the EU and Canada in a dispute over car parts.

"The verdict found that China was breaking trade rules by taxing imports of auto parts at the same rate as foreign-made finished cars," AP reports. "The three-member WTO panel ruled against China on nearly every point of contention," determining that the Chinese measures "accord imported auto parts less favorable treatment than like domestic auto parts" or "subject imported auto parts to an internal charge in excess of that applied to like domestic auto parts."

Global Air Freight Growth Dips
A little behind on this, but the International Air Transport Association (IATA) earlier this month released international traffic data for May that showed a significant drop in cargo growth to 1.3 percent. At this level, cargo demand is considerably down from the 4.3 percent recorded for the full year 2007.

For the first five months of 2008, air freight volumes were up 2.8 percent. The biggest cause of the slow growth came from a 0.5 percent contraction in Asian carrier traffic. This resulted from the impact of the earthquake in China and weakness in the Japanese economy.

Celebrating Billion-Dollar Losses
Last week, AMR Corp. and Delta Air Lines each reported losses of more than $1 billion on sky-high fuel prices. A sign of the state of the airline industry, both airlines' results were better than analysts had anticipated and both demonstrated solid cash positions.

"The news rallied the entire airline sector," according to MarketWatch, as the results suggest that "the losses are manageable."

Orders for Private Jets Slowing in U.S.
The New York Times reports that manufacturers at the Farnborough International Airshow last week said they were "seeing signs that private jet sales in the American market were beginning to soften."

For example, Honeywell, the world's largest avionics maker, has seen the American market slip "well below 50 percent of global sales in recent months," illustrating "worries about the American economy and the growth of other markets, like Russia, South Asia and the Middle East."

Hydrogen Vehicles Progressing But Need Gov.'t Support
Although hydrogen-powered vehicles could one day make up a majority of automobiles on U.S. roads, the zero-emission cars would require a hefty investment of about $200 billion for infrastructure and subsidies to support them, according to a National Academies report released on Thursday.

"While the development of fuel cell and hydrogen production technology over the past several years has been impressive, challenges remain," concluded the committee that wrote the report. "Vehicle costs are high, and the U.S. currently lacks the infrastructure to produce and widely distribute hydrogen to consumers. These obstacles could be overcome, however, with continued support for research and development and firm commitments from the automotive industry and the federal government."

U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Rise
The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose by 18,000 to 366,000 in the week ended July 12, the U.S. Dept. of Labor reported on Thursday. Major automobile-producing states Michigan and Ohio saw the largest increase in initial claims during the latest week.

Weekly claims have averaged 362,400 so far this year, compared with an average of 321,000 in 2007, when the economy generated 91,000 new jobs each month on average.

"The Labor Department figures on unemployment claims so far aren't matching the losses seen in previous economic downturns," according to Bloomberg News. "During the last recession, in 2001, about 415,000 workers on average filed jobless claims each week."