The price of a barrel of oil stopped its rise in New York, after investors reconsidered the limits of genuine demand for crude oilaffected by fears of an imminent recessionary cycle and due to the fall in inventories in the United States.
The barrel of the WTI variety fell 0.4% and closed at US$80.40 while the Brent type fell 0.2% and traded at US$84.80, according to figures posted on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). ).
The recent economic data in the United States opened up a series of questions among investors as to whether activity is not rapidly entering a cooling phase that is going to have a full impact on the demand for hydrocarbons.
Recently released labor market figures show weaker economic conditions and analysts estimate these will weigh on fuel demand.
The available jobs broke the floor of 10 million vacancies and fell to its lowest level in the last two years, which suggests that the labor market is changing its trend.
This comes after initial jobless claims fell in the last week of March for the second straight period.
US companies added fewer jobs than expected in March as wage growth slowed, highlighting labor demand showing some signs of cooling off, Bloomberg reported.
Private sector payrolls increased by 145,000 last month after an upwardly revised growth of 261,000 in February, according to figures published on Wednesday by the private consultancy ADP, something that will be corroborated later by the official employment survey of the Department of Job.
Traders will look for clues to broader economic trends in US Nonfarm Payrolls data due this week, as weak economic data from the world’s largest economy and China raise fears for demand.
For its part, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported today that “commercial oil inventories, excluding Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), decreased by 7.5 million barrels compared to the previous week, totaling 473 .7 million barrels and are 6% above the average of the last five years for this time of year.”
Meanwhile, total automotive gasoline inventories decreased by 2.9 million barrels last week and is 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Natural gas futures contracts for May delivery rose 1.4% to settle at $2.136 per million BTU.
Source: Ambito
I am a 24-year-old writer and journalist who has been working in the news industry for the past two years. I write primarily about market news, so if you’re looking for insights into what’s going on in the stock market or economic indicators, you’ve come to the right place. I also dabble in writing articles on lifestyle trends and pop culture news.
