Commodities: Crude oil futures pumeled on both sides of the Atlantic
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Tuesday 13 Nov 2018
(Sharecast News) - Crude oil futures crumbled amid what appeared to be the forced liquidation of 'long' positions as losses snowballed across most of the energy complex.
As of 2100 GMT, front month Brent crude oil futures were sliding 7.03% to $65.19 per barrel, alongside a slightly larger drop of 7.81% to $55.25 per barrel for similarly-dated West Texas Intermediate.
In parallel, RBOB gasoline futures on NYMEX were down by 6.16% at $1.5358 a gallon and those for heating oil by 4.28% to $2.0634 a gallon.
Natural gas futures on the other hand were climbing 7.42% to $4.07/MMBtu.
From a bird's eye view, the US dollar spot index was edging lower by 0.23% at 97.2270, although at one point during the session it came within a whisker of its previous 52-week highs at 97.6930.
The price action across the rest of the commodities space was more subdued, except perhaps in wheat, for which the December CBoT contract dropped 2.31% to $5.0775 per bushel.
Most base metals contracts on the LME on the other edged higher, boosted by the news around US-China trade talks.
Nevertheless, after hitting an intra-day high at $6,181 per metric tonne, three-month copper ended the session at $6,073 per tonne following an open at $6,030.
Dragging on the red metal's price, figures on Chinese new local currency loans for the month of October printed at 697bn yuan, versus 1380bn yuan in the month before (consensus: 905bn yuan).
Commenting on them, Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics told clients: "The upshot is that lower interbank rates and on-budget fiscal support have so far been insufficient to drive a sustained turnaround in lending.
"With credit growth still cooling, economic activity looks set to come under further pressure in the coming months. We expect officials to step up policy easing in response, including benchmark lending rate cuts and off-budget fiscal stimulus."
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