Shares turn cautious as U.S. crude gets crushed – By Marc Jones and Wayne Cole (OANN) / April 20 2020
FILE PHOTO: The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 17, 2020. REUTERS/Staff/File Photo
April 20, 2020
LONDON/SYDNEY (Reuters) – Caution recaptured world markets on Monday as another drubbing for U.S. crude oil futures kicked off a week of data and earnings that will drive home the damage being inflicted by global coronavirus lockdowns.
European stocks made a choppy start, with the pan-regional EUROSTOXX 600 <.STOXX> swinging in and out of positive territory in early trading. London’s FTSE <.FTSE> and Germany’s DAX <.GDAXI> were up 0.2%.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 <ESc1> slipped nearly 0.5% too, after Wall Street enjoyed a strong end to last week, though it barely seemed to reflect the latest violent turbulence in oil markets.
With some global storage facilities nearly full to capacity, the ‘front-month’ May benchmark U.S. crude contract <CLc1> was down $3.40, or 18%, to $14.87 a barrel, having at one point dived as low as $14.47 a barrel – the lowest since March 1999.
European benchmark Brent was down a more manageable 3% <LCOc1> at $27.30 a barrel, but it all points to the same problem – too much supply, not enough demand.
“For oil there is a bit of a technical story (with storage), but still, if energy consumption is down 30% and OPEC reduces supply by 10%, there is still a large gap,” said Rabobank’s head of macro strategy Elwin de Groot.
Continue to article: https://www.oann.com/asia-shares-off-to-cautious-start-u-s-crude-slides/
