February WTI Crude has fallen over $4.50 over the week, as traders booked profits from the Christmas rally and commodities weakened across the board as the dollar index rallied, along with US Treasury yields.
Crude opened the week at $91.38 and rallied sharply in thin market conditions to $92.54, before closing marginally higher at $91.52. Tuesday saw a sharp fall from $92.00 as equities came off sharply, despite an improved US factory orders release, and the 7.51 million barrel draw in inventories reported by the API with crude hitting $88.35 before closing at $89.15. Wednesday‘s more definitive DOE release reported a draw of 4.16 million barrels of crude, doubling analysts expectations, which sparked a rally back to $90.81. However, this only attracted some further profit taking on Thursday as equities eased again and sent the barrel price to a week‘s low of $87.84. Friday saw a recovery ahead of the US non – farm payroll data to $89.19, but fell shortly after the release to $88.23 as weaker payrolls were offset by a sharp drop in the jobless rate, before returning to $89.00.
