The geopolitical risk premium attributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine eroded by the end of last week when Brent closed below the settlement price on February 23. Not that it was needed but a stark reminder was provided yesterday that the crisis, which is in its sixth month has not abated and it makes the [...]
Every big price swing is followed by a retracement and when that happens the guessing game starts: is it really just a correction or the market has bottomed or peaked out and the prevailing trend is reversing? Yesterday was one of those days but in all honesty the oil complex must do much better to [...]
The ursine community is in control of the oil market. Friday’s modest rebound couldn’t prevent the two leading crude markers from posting their biggest weekly decline since April. WTI and Brent lost more than $9/bbl over the period to trade at levels not seen since February before Russia invaded Ukraine. The US grade ended the [...]
Those of a bullish disposition made another beeline for the exits yesterday, so much so that oil prices fell to the lowest since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine. WTI plunged into the $80s while Brent finished the session below $95/bbl. At the heart of the pullback is the prospect of declining demand amid [...]
One of the relevant features of the current week was the virtual OPEC+ meeting that was expected to lay out the path the producer group would follow after the current supply agreement expires at the end of the month. There was a broad consensus amongst analysts and market players that the alliance will go for [...]
The price action across the oil market remains jittery. The two leading crude benchmarks traded in a range of almost $4/bbl on Tuesday as tensions built ahead of this week’s main risk event. Brent and WTI initially traded around $1/bbl lower before resuming their climb to settle roughly 50 cts/bbl higher on the day. Buying [...]
The only bullish element of yesterday’s trading, OPEC’s struggle to increase production meaningfully, went unnoticed. The producer group, the latest Reuters survey showed, pumped 28.98 mbpd in July, up 310,000 bpd on the month. Those with quotas increased production by 240,000 bpd, 1.28 mbpd below the maximum allowed, reaching a compliance of 418%. Such a [...]
Last month’s performance neatly summed up the state of the oil market. Every contract lost value in July, which paints an ostensibly gloomy picture going forward. There was, however, a more than impressive bounce from the mid-month lows and this might just provide a dim ray of hope for oil bulls. The tale of two [...]
Where the US goes, the rest of the world usually follows. Market players will be hoping this old adage does not ring true in the coming months after the US economy fell into technical recession. US GDP shrank by just over 0.2% in April-June, or by 0.9% on an ‘annualised’ basis, government figures showed yesterday. [...]
The expected is greeted with a rally these days as was the case yesterday. One of the major events of the week, the Fed’s interest rate decision, did not rock the boat. Although the central bank’s aggressive modus operandi is tangible indeed, the fact that it lived up to expectations and hiked interest rates by [...]
