Energy Market Updates

This past week has been a wild one.

And down we go again - today WTI closed down almost 3%  (the final close was 40.74), which is around an 8% loss on the week. Brent came within 2 dollars of a low not seen in over 6 years, and also ended the week at around an 8% loss, according to Reuters.

Today's EIA Inventory Report indicated that Crude Inventories were up 2.8 million barrels for the week ending October 30th, and the market reacted accordingly. API had forecast a build as well, so prior to the EIA release we were trending down about 1%, which accelerated to over 3% once the official numbers came out. 

Yesterday we saw the beginning of a reversal of last week's rally on more bad economic news from China that came out over the weekend. Specifically, manufacturing dropped again, remaining under the level that is seen as official contraction. Once again, this impacts the oil markets because we're counting on their demand remaining high, or even increasing. That doesn't happen when your manufacturing slows down. Monday settled down marginally with the exception of gasoline. (Crude at 46.14, ULSD down -.0098 to 1.5069 and Gas up 37 points to 1.3753).

Today however, was an entirely different story. At the close, ULSD settled at 1.5660 (+.0591), Gas was up (+.0702) to 1.4455, and Crude was up almost 4% to 47.90, with Brent settling up 3.5% to $50.51.

Another day, another price drop.

Crude prices are on track to be down around 5% on the week. There were some initial jumps this morning on hope that the newly announced Chinese Stimulus Package could ramp up demand. Prices reversed sharply and quickly, however, as the dollar continues to crush other currencies, which almost universally sends commodities in general on a slide. 

Crude came back in a big way in trading today – with intraday highs briefly breaking $50 before settling out at $49.43/bbl. (Fun fact – we haven’t seen WTI break $50 since July)

Today once again started in positive territory, with Crude up almost 2% and refined products creeping higher, but we saw a quick reversal mid-morning when products dropped into the negative, where they would end up settling at the close. (Crude ended up settling down to $47.81, ULSD was down -.0319 to $1.5796 and Gas dropped -.0462 to $1.390)

Yesterday we saw Crude jump almost 2% on a weaker dollar and speculations about Russia and OPEC’s upcoming meeting. Today more fuel was added to the fire (no pun intended) and we saw Crude continue to jump, settling out up an additional 4.9% to $48.53/bbl. Going along for the ride, ULSD closed up (+.0632) to 1.6115 and RBOB jumped (+.0509) to 1.4362.