Oil Rises After Drop in US Crude Inventories

Oil prices edged up for a second day on Wednesday, recovering from a drop below $50 a barrel, after weekly data showed a fall in U.S. crude inventories, while a stronger dollar tempered gains.

The dollar rose to its highest in over three months after a voting member of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee expressed support for an interest rate hike in September.

A stronger dollar tends to undermine crude oil by making it more profitable for non-U.S. investors to sell it.

Growing oversupply, slowing demand from China and the prospect of crude flooding onto the market from Iran after Tehran’s deal with the West over its nuclear program have knocked 21 percent off the oil price this quarter.

“All the negative news we’ve had in the last few weeks and months, starting with the nuclear deal with Iran, through to economic weakness in China and the strength of the dollar have all added up and, at least in our view, this (sell-off) was overdone,” said Commerzbank strategist Eugen Weinberg.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency 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.
Alfonso Esparza