This week in SONAR: improved navigation and robust macroeconomic data

Features Release

• Navigation Menu – A new section was added to the navigation bar, called Apps. This is easier for users to navigate, and will highlight new features. Apps include Alerts, Critical Events, Passport, and inGauge. 
• My Pages will be above Global Pages, giving you quicker access your customized pages.
• Highway cameras will auto-populate as the user zooms and pans on the screen.

Data Releases 

Housing Starts – now available in a year-over-year format. Housing starts tracks the number of new houses (in thousands) that builders began construction on in a month. The number is seasonally adjusted and organized into regions of the U.S. Housing starts are considered a key indicator of the economy because they have ties to manufacturing, banking, construction, raw materials and obviously real estate. 

The Headhaul Index – variations excluding trips

Autos – SONAR now provides an aggregate of the auto production numbers for all markets to create a total for the entire United States. This did not exist previously; now auto production can be compared to other macroeconomic tickers to create additional insight. 

Futures Time Series (Futures 1 month out, 2 months out, etc) – these are tickers that display the continuous daily historical price time series for each individual contract month. 

Platts Markets data – SONAR has added extensive new data from S&P Global Platts to provide even more information about the oil and fuels markets.  

All previous SONAR release notes are available HERE. Learn more by using Sue Says in SONAR and clicking on the orca! As always, feel free to send in your questions.