Market Snapshot – Oil and Dollar the Focus

OPEC Communicates Its Support for Oil

Crude oil prices continued to be steady and they have managed to continue their slow and steady rise during the last 24 hours. There have been a few developments since the beginning of the week which has supported the crude oil prices and the most important of them has been the OPEC meeting. At the conclusion of this meeting, the significant takeaways have been the fact that Nigeria has accepted to cut down on its production to help the OPEC to control the supply. It was also noted that Saudi Arabia would be cutting its daily production even more, in the short term, and this is expected to support the oil prices. This growth in oil prices has helped to build the investor sentiment which is evident in the buoyant trading that has been seen in the stock markets. The oil prices have been helped further by the larger than expected draw in the oil inventory as well.

Dollar in the Radar

The dollar is expected to be the focus for the rest of the day today as the markets await the FOMC meeting minutes in a few hours from now. The dollar has been on the backfoot for much of the last few weeks due to the lack of support from the Fed and also due to the bad economic data from the US. The dollar bulls would be hoping that some of that changes in the next few hours as they would be looking for some support for the dollar in the minutes. The Fed is expected to touch upon the monetary policy and reassure the markets that the next rate hike is still on the horizon.