Commodities
Crude prices moved higher after the previous session’s losses.
The day range on Brent is US$98.30 to US$101.15. The range on West Texas Intermediate is US$93.67 to US$97.37. Both benchmarks finished below US$100 a barrel on Tuesday.
“I remain skeptical that oil prices will move materially lower from here,” OANDA senior analyst Jeffrey Halley said.
“The forward futures remain heavily in backwardation on both Brent and WTI, indicating real-world supplies remain tighter than Elon Musk’s wallet.”
He added OPEC’s latest forecast suggests a supply-demand deficit from its members will continue through 2023.
“The price action still appears to be a disconnect between the speculative world, and the real world, although I don’t discount more downside losses in the short term,” he said.
Renewed worries about the impact of COVID-19 restrictions in China have weighed on crude prices through the early part of this week.
Later Wednesday morning, the U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly inventory figures. Analysts are expected to see a drop in crude and gasoline stocks, although numbers from the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday showed a 4.8-million-barrel increase in crude inventories.