RTTN: Crude Oil Rally Out Of Fuel Ahead Of OPEC Meeting
Crude oil prices are lower Monday morning, retreating a bit after two successive days of gains.
After Friday's rise on the back of an unexpected interest rate cut announce met from China, the focus is now on the OPEC meet due November 27 in Vienna. Speculation is rife that OPEC members may agree on a production cut to check falling prices.
According to reports, Iran is likely ask OPEC to cut its output target by 1 million barres a day.
However, some members, including Saudi Arabia have already indicated that they would rather settle for lower prices than agreeing for a reduction in output.
Crude oil futures for January are down $0.25 or 0.33 percent at $76.26 a barrel.
On Friday, crude oil futures ended up $0.66 or 0.9 percent at $76.51 a barrel, after scaling a high of $77.83 intraday, despite a slightly stronger dollar.
An unexpected interest rate cut announcement from China's central bank and comments by European Central Bank Prsident Mario Draghi on additional stimulus lifted crude oil prices on Friday.
In a surprise move, the People's Bank of China cut its key lending rate to 5.6 percent, to spur economic growth. The bank bank reduced the deposit rate to 2.75 percent.
Speaking at the Frankfurt European Banking Congress on Friday, Draghi said the central bank will expand its asset purchase program if inflation fails to show signs of returning to the targeted level.
Meanwhile, natural gas is down $0.222 or 5.01 percent at $4.195 per million btu.
At 8:30 am ET, the Chicago Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the results of its national manufacturing survey. Markit will release flash estimate of its service sector purchasing managers' index for November at 9:45 am ET.
At 10:30 am ET, the Dallas Federal Reserve is due to release the results of its regional manufacturing survey.
Among other data due this week are the results of consumer confidence surveys by the Confernce Board and the University of Michigan and Reuters, the Commerce Department's data on personal income and spending, new home sales and durable goods orders.
Also due this week are the results of house prices surveys for September from S&P/Case-Shiller and the Federal House Finance Agency, pending home sales data from the National Association of Realtors, preliminary reading of third quarter GDP and the Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report.
