Oil making a 7-month high overnight is getting markets into a twitter.  The a drop in crude stocks is the driver, adding fuel to hopes that an economic recovery is on the horizon.  A weakening U.S. dollar also doesn’t hurt. Blogger Macroman, however, makes an interesting point: the demand for crude doesn’t seem to be driven by China - the usual culprit behind sharp rises in commodities.

While crude hogs most of the headlines in the commodity space, on the basis of this study at least China’s behaviour has had relatively little impact on price. Unlike the other commodities, import volumes have yet to reach last year’s highs, and they have only now reached the trend of the salad days.

Full post here.

The move will certainly bolster bond bears’ argument that there’s only one direction for Treasury yields and that’s up. The sale of more debt should add to the momentum. Treasury sells $19 billion 10-year notes later today and $11 billion 30-year notes on Thursday. And stocks, well after the overnight gains elsewhere, US stock futures are pointing to gains of about 1%.