Crude oil futures fell Thursday morning in European trading after a more than $3/b rally overnight.”You see a number of headlines out there about the market recovering but crude prices came down brutally on the 24th, therefore yesterday’s rally was merely a rebound,” Frank Lousen from Global Risk Management said Thursday morning.
“Crude futures dropped significantly due to low volumes on Christmas Day trading. We had very little participants in the market so I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from the move.” At 1206 GMT, ICE February Brent crude futures were $1.04/b lower at $53.43/b, while the NYMEX February light sweet crude contract was down 77 cents at $45.45/b.
“You also have headlines with [US president Donald] Trump saying that buying opportunity is good, equity went up so crude went up. But this is just pulling it out of the nose, there is no substance to it,” Lousen added. “We have to wait a couple of days, weeks even, to see if these levels are actually where value is.” Economic concerns driven by geopolitical tensions, including the US-China trade war, also weighed on oil prices.
“There is still a long way to go to see what [the US and China] will agree and not agree on, but it seems the tone is good for now,” Lousen said. Further, the market will be looking for more clues on the pace of US output with the release of weekly US inventory data. Plats.com
