The strong relationship between oil and the dollar exchange rate is not set in stone but yesterday the strengthening of the greenback clearly had a palpable impact on oil and other risk assets. Once again, it provided a safe haven, together with bonds, for those who decided to flee oil and equities in the face [...]
Friday’s slight pullback failed to spoil what was another good week for the oil market. Brent and WTI tacked on 2% over the period and in doing so scored their fifth straight weekly advance. Both crude markers rallied to highs not seen since October 2014, back when a global pandemic was the stuff of Hollywood [...]
The oil price rally took a breather yesterday with both crude markers ending a smidge lower following a string of solid daily gains. Buying pressures were knocked by a bearish US stock report. The headline figure was a hefty 5.8 million bbls build in gasoline supplies. This took stocks in the fuel back above the [...]
There is seemingly nothing that can come into the way of the oil price rally. The ingredients of the relentless march higher are well-known and well-documented. The impact of the Omicron variant on the global economy is getting subdued. It is generally cold on the Northern Hemisphere. Geopolitics, let it be the Russian-West standoff over [...]
A big reason why oil prices have climbed since the start of the year is the belief that Omicron’s impact on oil demand will be weaker than expected. This sentiment was recently echoed by OPEC after it claimed that the variant’s impact would be mild and short-lived. It therefore comes as a surprise that the [...]
Despite the relatively muted performance and low volume due to Martin Luther King Day in the US the oil market has remained true to its recent self. It has causally ignored bearish developments and focused on the ones that are deemed supportive. Stubborn inflation and fast approaching rate rise does not appear on investor’s agenda [...]
The party (not in the UK’s prime minister residence but in the oil market) goes on. The second week of 2022 was as buoyant as the first as the price rally continued. Positive developments were in focus and there is a genuine belief that physical demand will keep exceeding supply and in return this perceived [...]
Two weeks into the new year and the script has already been torn up. Surging Omicron cases and record COVID infections were supposed to act as a brake on demand and hence prices. Instead, the price action has surprised to the upside as the impact of the new variant turned out to be less severe than [...]
The oil market is unbelievably resilient, and bulls are in full control. There seems to be a widely held view -actually it is more of a conviction- that the supply deficit that characterized 2021 will continue undisturbed this year. The latest leg up that started pre-Christmas based on mild symptoms of the Omicron variant accelerated [...]
The supply front has been garnering all the attention of late. And it’s not hard to see why. Whether it be frigid weather in western Canada and northern US states or political unrest in Libya and Kazakhstan, the flurry of outages has provided ample ammunition for oil bulls. It was the same story yesterday. No [...]
