Oil Drops as OPEC Comments and Inventories in Spotlight

Oil prices slumped to two-week lows on Thursday as global stock markets fell, with investor sentiment made more bearish by an industry report showing U.S. crude inventories rising more than expected.


West Texas Intermediate graph

Brent crude LCOc1 fell $1.95 a barrel to a low of $81.14, its weakest since September 26, before recovering a little to trade around $81.60 by 1200 GMT. Brent lost 2.2 percent on Wednesday. On October 3, it hit a four-year high of $86.74.

U.S. light crude CLc1 dropped $1.54 to $71.63 but then recovered to around $72.00. The contract lost 2.4 percent in the previous session.


West Texas Intermediate graph

Share markets in Asia plunged to a 19-month low on Thursday after Wall Street’s worst losses in eight months led to broader risk aversion, a rise in market volatility gauges and concerns over overvalued stock markets in an environment of rapidly rising dollar yields. [MKTS/GLOB]

OPEC cut its forecast of global demand growth for oil next year for a third straight month on Thursday, citing headwinds facing the broader economy from trade disputes and volatile emerging markets.

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