WASHINGTON (Alliance News) - The price of crude oil was moving lower Monday morning, with the US dollar trading weak amid uncertainty overt the release of this week's macroeconomic data out of the world's largest economy.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for November delivery, lost USD1.09 to USD102.75 a barrel. Last week, oil gained nedarly1 percent to level-off from a two month low on supply disruption concerns after Tropical Storm Karen moved into the Gulf of Mexico. With oil companies closing down production in the area on the impending tropical storm in the gulf basin, supply disruptions supported prices. Investors largely ignored a strong dollar and the partial US government shutdown that enters the fourth day amid debt ceiling concerns.
This morning the US dollar was lingering around its nine-month low versus the euro and sterling, while trading around its 2-month low against the yen and extending losses versus the Swiss franc.
In economic news, euro zone investor confidence deteriorated unexpectedly in October, a closely watched survey conducted by think-tank Sentix showed. The headline investor sentiment index dropped to 6.1 in October from the second-highest level on record. Economists had forecast the score to rise to 8.5 from 6.5 points in September. The unexpected decline was driven by the deterioration in respondents future expectations.
A number of governmental economic reports due for the unfolding week are likely to be delayed due to the ongoing government shutdown. The minutes of the September 17-18 FOMC meeting, some Fed speeches, the Labor Department's jobless claims and producer price inflation reports, preliminary results of a consumer sentiment survey by Reuters and the University of Michigan and Federal Reserve's consumer credit report for August are among the economic reports scheduled to be released this week.
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.
