by Calculated Risk on 2/22/2015 07:16:00 PM

There are ships everywhere at anchor outside of Long Beach and Los Angeles. It sounds like it will take a few months to clear the backlog (although this article says six to eight weeks). From Bloomberg: West Coast Ports Come Back to Life

The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest, handled 29 percent less cargo in January 2015 compared with January 2014, and volumes were down 19 percent in neighboring Long Beach, the second-busiest, according to statements from both ports.
...
It will take six to eight weeks for West Coast ports to recover from the cargo backlog, according to the Port of Oakland and the National Retail Federation, which represents stores that resorted to stockpiling seasonal merchandise in warehouses and shifting to East and Gulf coast ports.

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for January. This is a composite index of other data.

• At 10:00 AM, Existing Home Sales for January from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for sales of 5.00 million on seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) basis. Sales in December were at a 5.04 million SAAR. Economist Tom Lawler estimates the NAR will report sales of 4.90 million SAAR.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for February.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of February 22, 2015

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are flat and DOW futures are down slightly (fair value).

Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $50.39 per barrel and Brent at $60.22 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $103, and Brent was at $110 - so prices are down close to half year-over-year.

Below is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are up to $2.30 per gallon (down over $1.00 per gallon from a year ago).  If you click on "show crude oil prices", the graph displays oil prices for WTI, not Brent; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.

Orange County Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com