The price of a barrel of crude oil fell below $44 in NYMEX electronic trading Friday, and there really does not seem to be any reason to think the bottom is in sight. Oil prices got no help from the morning’s report on nonfarm jobs, which many analysts and investors believe will lead to an interest rate hike as early as next month.
Demand from both China and India has remained solid, but, in China at least, economic growth is stagnant at best and shows no signs of improving. A strong dollar also weighs on crude because oil is priced in dollars. As the dollar strengthens, the price of crude weakens.
Over the past three years, the S&P 500 index has gained 50% while the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has dropped by 50%, with all the decline coming in the past year and a half or so. Oil could lose more than 6% this week alone, the biggest weekly decline since March.
Having busted through $44 a barrel, the new question is when does WTI break through the $40 floor. On Monday the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) releases its monthly drilling productivity report and on Tuesday the latest revision to the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook. OPEC also releases its monthly report on the oil market next Tuesday, and on Wednesday the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes its monthly oil market report. Any single one of these reports is unlikely to push oil below $40, but if all are singing from the same hymn book and if the EIA’s weekly petroleum status report puts up another small drop or any increase in crude inventories, a price below $40 is possible.
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