Market Report & Analysis for 7/18/2018 Morning Edition

Morning Market Overview

Prices took a full-on beating on Monday. Those betting production increases will outweigh the geopolitically driven production outages are winning the battle.

Prices declined strongly today after falling for the previous two weeks. The spot Brent contract declined around 4 percent today and is now trading at the lowest level since April. Further to the concerns over Libyan production coming back on stream is talk that the US may push oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve onto the market to send prices lower. On the financial front global equity markets were mixed. The level of uncertainty remains at an elevated level. The EMI Index was lower for five of the ten bourses in the Index.

The EMI Index decreased by 0.03 percent on the day with the year to date loss at 0.6 percent. Five of the ten bourses in the Index are now in positive territory for 2018 with China still in the worst performing spot in the Index with Australia in the top spot with a 4.3 percent gain for the year. The negative value direction in global equity markets was a negative price driver for the oil complex.

On the currency front the US dollar Index is lower on the day with the Yen/USD and the Euro/USD lower. Overall the currency markets were a positive price driver for the oil complex.