Energy Market Updates

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.

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.

WTI dropped 2.8% today to close out at $44.43 a barrel, while Brent closed out down 2.5% . On the refined products side of the NYMEX, ULSD and Gas both took a pummeling as well, with both down over 4 on the day. To be exact, ULSD closed out down (-.0453) to 1.4772 and RBOB closed down (-.0471) to 1.3488.

Today we saw some reversals in the abject panic selloffs we saw Friday and especially Monday. (Click here to recap Friday)

Friday saw oil futures tumble again to multi-month lows, with Brent settling at 48.61, and WTI at 43.87 for September. (ULSD closed out at 1.5436, and RBOB at 1.6230 ) on general concerns about the oil glut and dissapointing economic data from China. 

This morning Brent Crude dropped under $50 for the first time in 6 months, and WTI fell below $45/bbl to within $2 of a 6 year low. Shortly after noon, the NYMEX showed ULSD down .0452 cents, and gas down almost 9 (-.0882).