Ireland is still in the news as speculation rises around its macroeconomic condition and how will the bailout affect the entire European Union. It’s currently hard to predict how Ireland’s economic condition will affect the prices of commodities as they serve as investment instruments in such dire cases, and not only for energy use.
Considering that it will be hard to predict a trend for this week on crude oil prices I think that once the rumors around the level of bailout and its effects on Europe will settle, it will be easier to see how Ireland’s condition will affect, if any, the prices of major commodities. If I will speculate I think that we will see in the next several weeks a slow downward trend of crude oil prices, as it seems that the current levels are high.
This speculation is currently also cited in Bloomberg, and is attributed mainly to the speculation over China’s fight on Inflation, the Irish crisis and the QE2 (quantitative easing – second phase) not fulfilling the speculation (for now at least) around the dollar weakening as the Federal Reserve is expected to pump into the American economy 600 billion dollars.
I will address this issue in the near future as I will analyze this month’s trends and news.
For now, consider that despite the downward slop that crude oil prices are at, natural gas prices (in particular the Nymex Henry Hub Future) continue to rise, as it seems that the speculation around this energy commodity is much less effected by news comparing to crude oil. For one thing, news from China apparently is less affecting natural gas prices probably since China is less dependent on natural gas, while vis-à-vis to crude oil, China is second in consumption only to the US, and therefore has appear to have a much stronger effect.
Have a good trading week!
Prices:
Here is an update on the prices of main energy commodities for November 22nd:
The crude oil price of short term futures (Nymex), as of 16.32PM GMT, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is currently traded at 81.03 USD per barrel, which represents a dollar 0.95 decrease or a 1.16 % drop.
The Dated Brent spot crude oil reached 82.98 USD per barrel – a 0.65 per barrel fall as of 16.43PM GMT.
The WTI spot price is trading as of 14.04PM GMT at 81.45 USD per barrel, a drop of 0.07% compare to the previous business day’s rate.
The Natural Gas prices (the Nymex Henry Hub Future) continue to rise after Friday’s (November 19th) increase by 4%, and is currently traded at 4.18$ MMBTU (one million BTU) as of 16.32PM GMT, which is a 0.36% increase or 0.02 in $ MMBTU.