Today, on October 17, crude oil is reported to be going down in value. For now, experts believe that there are 3 major factors driving oil prices down. Let’s go ahead and take a closer look at them.
At the beginning of today’s trading session, crude oil prices almost instantly went lower, driven by the following 3 factors:
For starters, the U.S. Dollar is getting stronger at this point, which is means that oil and major currencies are going down against it, since crude oil is traded for U.S. Dollars and the majors are also traded within the scope of currency pairs against the Dollar. Secondly, the amount of oil rigs in the USA is reported to have gone up as compared to the previous reporting period. And lastly, OPEC is still producing record-high volumes of crude oil despite the recent agreement to cut their total production quotas in the near future. All of that is also happening amid a weaker global economy, which is currently slowing down.
To be more specific, WTI futures lost 0,26% against yesterday’s close to see $50,22/b. Brent futures saw a decline as well – 0,10% down to $51,90/b.
Meanwhile, more and more representatives of the international expert community are turning bearish on crude oil, thereby making bearish predictions for the near future. This is not accidental, even if to consider only one of the mentioned 3 factors. The thing is that investors expect the USA to increase oil production after the amount of oil rigs increased. This would be logical.
