The trade gap widened by $6.3 billion in January to $44.4 billion, the Commerce Department said. This follows a $10.1 billion decline in the prior month.
The one-month worsening in the deficit in January is the largest since last March.
An oil tanker pulls into the port of a Repsol oil refinery in Cartagena, eastern Spain February 15, 2012.
The lion’s share of the deterioration in the deficit in January was due to a sharp increase in petroleum imports after two months of decline.
The widening of the deficit was larger than expected. Analysts surveyed by MarketWatch had expected the deficit to widen to $42.4 billion.
via Marketwatch
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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