Oil prices are rising on Monday amid weak trading activity before the Christmas holidays.
On Wednesday, stock exchanges in the US, UK, Germany, France and other European countries, as well as Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia, will be closed for Christmas. Many sites will remain closed on Thursday as well.
The cost of February futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange as of 7:20 a.m. is $73.27 per barrel, which is $0.33 (0.45%) higher than at the close of the previous trading. On Friday, these contracts fell by $0.06 (0.1%) to $72.94 per barrel.
Futures for WTI for February in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) have risen in price by this time by $0.38 (0.55%) to $69.84 per barrel. At the end of the previous session, the value of these contracts increased by $0.08 (0.1%) to $69.46 per barrel.
Last week, Brent fell by 2.1%, WTI – by 1.9%.
On Monday, traders are evaluating the statements of US President-elect Donald Trump, who demanded that the Panama Canal Authority reduce the fee for the passage of ships through this waterway. Otherwise, Washington may regain control of this facility, Trump said.
“Trump’s threats and rhetoric in the international arena are mostly just noise for the oil markets at the moment,” said Vanda Hari, founder of Vanda Insights in Singapore. – “Given the low trading activity and the lack of strong market signals, I expect the sideways trend to continue until the end of the year.
Experts at Haitong Futures, whose review was cited by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, note that the US statistics released on Friday showed a weaker-than-expected increase in the Federal Reserve’s key inflation indicator (PCE index). This somewhat eased investors’ fears of a sharp slowdown in the pace of policy easing by the US Central Bank, Haitong said in a review.
