The price of crude oil was extending its 2-month low Monday morning as traders were cautious ahead of the outcome of an informal meeting of the euro zone finance ministers that gets underway in Luxembourg later today.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for November delivery, lost $1.32 to $88.56 a barrel. Last week, oil ended lower near its 2-month low mostly on concerns over global economic slowdown and oil demand growth. Oil prices slumped notwithstanding a decline in U.S. crude stockpile and a couple of upbeat macroeconomic data from the world's largest economy.
This morning, the U.S. dollar continued to recover from a two-week low versus the euro and advancing to a monthly high against sterling. The buck was ticking higher versus the Swiss franc, while moving lower against the yen.
In economic news, Germany's exports grew unexpectedly in August on higher demand, data from Destatis showed. Exports rose at a faster pace of 2.4 percent from a month ago, when it climbed 0.4 percent. At the same time, the increase in imports remained unchanged at 0.3 percent. Economists had forecast a 0.6 percent drop in exports and imports to grow 0.2 percent.
Meanwhile, preliminary data released by the Ministry of Economics and Technology showed that Germany's industrial production decreased in August after recording growth in the previous month, but the rate of fall was lower than economists expected. Industrial production declined a seasonally and calendar adjusted 0.5 percent month-on-month in August, reversing the previous month's 1.3 percent rise. Economists had forecast a slightly faster decline of 0.6 percent.
During this week traders focus will be on the Commerce Department's trade balance report for August, the weekly jobless claims report and the preliminary consumer sentiment report of Reuters and the University of Michigan.
Also, focus will be on the crude oil inventories data from the API, due out Wednesday after the market hours, and the EIA due out the subsequent day.
