Oil futures settled lower on Monday as a monthly decline in Chinese manufacturing activity dulled the outlook for crude demand, pushing prices back below $59 a barrel.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, June crude settled at $58.93 a barrel, down 22 cents, or 0.4%. Brent crude for June delivery on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell a penny to end at $66.45 a barrel.
China’s HSBC purchasing managers index, a widely tracked gauge of manufacturing activity, fell in April to a final reading of 48.9 — the lowest level since April 2014. “That’s a negative signal for China, which has been the source of much of the increase in petroleum use over the last decade,” said James Williams, an energy economist at WTRG Economics. “Any negative economic news from China is bearish for oil.”
The weak data from one of the world’s largest importers of crude oil interrupted a recent rally in oil futures, which lifted prices for Nymex oil by 25% in April.
Also Monday, data showed that the eurozone’s manufacturing sector expanded in April, although at a slightly slower pace than in March and in the U.S., a report from the Commerce Department revealed that factory orders climbed 2.1% in March. “The new factory orders in the U.S. saw their biggest monthly increase since August 2014,” said Taki Tsaklanos, head of research at Secular Investor.
Following the upbeat economic data, traders fear the Federal Reserve could be “trapped in raising rates as soon as the next meeting, planned in June,” he said. “A rate increase is being feared by traders as it would create selling in markets, including commodities like crude oil.”