Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, Products and services, Consumer experience, Middle East, Economic data, Oil, Federal Reserve

When we looked at oil prices this morning, we noted that traders had pushed up prices on two factors; anticipation of a rate cut from the Fed, and anticipation of a possible bullish inventory report today from the U.S. Energy Department. Well, The Fed did cut rates by 50 basis, but the inventory report this week was more on the bearish side.

Traders have opted to keep oil prices in the green today, focusing on the Fed’s decision instead of the the government report that showed inventories rose more than expected last week. Going into today’s report, the market was expecting to see a rise of 2.3 million barrels, but what we actually saw was a bit more than 50% higher than estimates at 3.6 million barrels.

This is the sort of news that would usually lead to oil prices heading into negative territory, but not today. The 50 basis point cut from the Fed can be given credit for today’s move in oil prices. Prices are currently trading up 66 cents to $92.30. At these prices, we are just about even with where we were earlier this morning before the report hit the market.

Continue reading Oil stays positive, despite bearish inventory report

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 7:46 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.