Oil down 2nd day in row on China, Fed; U.S. stockpile data awaited
Investing.com — Oil prices slid for a second day in a row, with U.S. crude settling beneath the key $80 per barrel support, on worries over the economic stalling in China and the potential for more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
The bull fervor over Saudi-Russian output cuts took a backseat, but helped put a floor under the market.
“There's always been a risk of U.S. rates remaining higher for longer, while China's recovery has been sluggish for months, as has their response to it,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA.
“We need to see a significant change in the trend of the data to seriously change the outlook for crude and we haven't seen that. It may come over the next month or so but for now, we just appear to have seen crude move into a higher range between $80-$90.”
The most-active October contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled down 48 cents, or 0.6%, at $79.64 per barrel — below the key $80 mark. WTI hit a session low of $79.47 earlier. The U.S. crude benchmark is down some 2% week-to-date, extending last week’s 2.3% slide after rallying nearly 20% over seven previous weeks.
Brent settled down 43 cents, or 0.5%, at $84.03 per barrel. The global crude benchmark was down about 1% on the week, extending last week’s 3% drop after a seven-week rally that gave oil bulls an 18% return.
The downside in crude has, however, been limited by data from oil cargo tracker Kpler that indicated a dramatic drop in crude exports from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies in the first 15 days of August.
The output cuts from the so-called OPEC+ alliance, led largely by the Saudis and Russians, could take away some 67.5 million barrels from the market over the
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