Crude oil prices have seemingly paid little heed to macro forces recently. Instead, the focus has been on a supply/demand imbalance that saw global output fall short of consumption by an average of 1.4 million barrels per day last year. That has brought cumulative international inventories to the lowest in seven years.
The WTI benchmark had another spirited intraday rally arrested Friday as blowout US jobs data stoked Fed rate hike speculation and drove up the US Dollar, but a downward reversal was tellingly absent. Prices are denominated in USD terms on world markets, so the currency’s rise applies de-facto pressure.
