Written on: September 6, 2023
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
Energy prices are trading flat to lower Wednesday morning, threatening to end a long gaining streak for WTI amid losses in European shares and in US stock market index futures, despite some weakness in the US dollar index.
Energy traders are looking ahead to the Bank of Canada monetary policy announcement, Canadian merchandise trade data, the US international trade in goods and services figures, and to the final S&P Global Composite PMI for further direction. The weekly EIA inventory report will be released tomorrow, a day later due to the holiday on Monday.
Asian stock markets closed flat to higher last night as the Hang Seng edged down 0.04% while the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.12% and the Nikkei rose 0.62%. In European news, retail sales in the Eurozone fell 0.2% in July, as expected. Manufacturers’ orders in Germany dropped 11.7% lower in July, missing forecasts calling for a smaller dip of 4.0%. On the other hand, the UK Construction PMI for August came in at 50.8, just above the 50.7 consensus, but still down from 51.7 the month prior. As of this writing, the DAX was down 0.5%, the FTSE 100 had lost 0.7%, and the CAC 40 was leading the way down with a 0.8% drop. US stock market index futures were seeing losses of around 0.25% this morning. In the supportive column, the US dollar index was down 0.1%.
Crude futures continued higher yesterday with WTI rising for an eighth consecutive session amid news that both Saudi Arabia and Russia have decided to extend their oil output cuts and reduced exports, respectively, through the end of the year. Brent crude rose $1.04 to $90.04 a barrel, WTI crude added $1.14 to close at $86.69 a barrel, gasoline edged down 1.02 cents to $2.5810 per gallon, heating oil shot up 11.46 cents to settle at $3.2196 per gallon and natural gas price settled at $2.582 per MMBTU.
Tropical Storm Lee has formed in the Central Tropical Atlantic and is expected to become a major hurricane by the end of the week as it moves northwestwards towards waters north of the Leeward Islands. The National Hurricane Center is following two more disturbances, one located in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic and the other in the Northeastern Atlantic, but both are given low chances of cyclone formation over the next 48 hours.