August Nymex WTI prices have slipped back into negative territory Thursday after settling up $1.90 at $85.81 a barrel during Wednesday’s session. WTI had initially opened in Asia around $86.16 a barrel, but prices have since pared back after posting a high of around $86.20 early on in the session, with the market extending lower in the last few moments to an intra-day low of $85.44 a barrel. Prices have not really received a boost from the release of last night’s FOMC minutes, which clearly illustrated that a sizeable body of support for further immediate stimulus action from the Fed is currently absent from the arena. In terms of supply, the stockpile drop was clearly the catalyst for yesterday’s advance higher, after the Energy Department report revealed that US crude stockpiles had fallen the most since December, showing a decrease of 859,000 barrels to 46.8mln, the biggest percentage loss posted since January. Previously released US government data had also revealed that crude inventories fell 4.7mln barrels last week, almost four times the amount that had been forecast by analysts.
EasyForexNews Research Team