Market Close: March 17 Mixed
Mar 17th, 2015 by loren
U.S. oil futures marked a loss for the sixth session in a row on Tuesday, holding ground at a six-year low as traders bet that coming reports will show another weekly increase in crude-oil supplies.
Crude oil for delivery in April lost 42 cents, or 1%, to settle at $43.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange — off the day’s intraday low of $42.63. Prices again settled at their lowest level since March 11, 2009 and they’ve tallied a six-session loss of more than 13%. May Brent crude lost 43 cents, down 0.8%, to end at $53.51 on London’s ICE Futures exchange. “Investors are buying on the dips, so the downside has been sort of contained,” said Richard Hastings, macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. “Throw in a pause in the U.S. dollar rally, and you get more buying action preventing a bigger slide in crude prices.”
The American Petroleum Institute will publish its petroleum inventory data late Tuesday. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly update is due on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Platts forecast a climb of 3.7 million barrels in crude stockpiles. The market’s looking at the “prospect of further brobdingnagian builds for crude” and stockpiles at Cushing, Okla., the U.S. crude storage hub, said Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, in a note.
In a report Tuesday, the EIA said March and April estimates for the Eagle Ford, Niobrara and Bakken Shale regions include the first projected declines in crude output from those regions since publication of the drilling productivity report began in October 2013. But production gains continue in other regions, so total April output in the regions covered by the report is expected to be unchanged from the March level.
Meanwhile, investors are watching the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks for signs of progress and the two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee which concludes Wednesday.
“The Fed are going to have to start talking down the potential of rate hikes if they want to rein in dollar strength,” said Smith. But even a stronger euro can’t support the crude complex “given another impending bearish inventory report, combined with rising Libyan production and hopes … regarding Iranian oil sanctions being lifted.”