Oil up ahead of OPEC meeting; dollar, stocks dip

FranzCrude futures rallied in choppy trading on Monday ahead of an OPEC meeting later in the week that could reap production cuts, while the US dollar recovered from earlier losses but was still slightly lower.

The dollar index slipped 0.15 percent after having fallen as much as 0.8 percent. The US currency sank as much as 1.6 percent against the yen, going as low as 111.32 yen before recovering to 112.24.

Most analysts said the dip in the dollar since Friday was simply a corrective pullback with the greenback still on track for its strongest two-month gain since early 2015.

“It looks much more like a correction than anything else – a Monday morning clearing of the decks before the end of the month,” said Societe Generale macro strategist Kit Juckes in London.

The euro was little changed versus the greenback after having gained nearly 1 percent to $1.0684 as it got a lift from the election of Francois Fillon as the center-right candidate in next year’s French presidential election. It was last at $1.0593 .

Fillon, a former French prime minister, is favourite to become president, with a flash opinion poll suggesting he would easily beat far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in a second round run-off. Markets worry that Le Pen, who has promised a referendum on membership of the European Union if she wins, would threaten the future of the currency bloc.

On Wall Street, consumer and financial stocks weighed on the S&P 500 after rallying last week.

“Those sectors are really due for some moderation in performance and it is very likely over the next week to two weeks we will see them actually underperform the market,” said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York.

“That should not be a cause for concern, that is probably very healthy and should lead to a more sustainable move higher in the near-term heading into 2017.”

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 35.46 points, or 0.19 percent, to 19,116.68, the S&P 500 lost 7.28 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,206.07 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.03 points, or 0.35 percent, to 5,379.89.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.85 percent, while MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.19 percent.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.9 percent.

Asian shares rose 0.5 percent overnight led by gains in Hong Kong and Taiwan, though Japan’s Nikkei ended down 0.1 percent.

Opec meets in busy week

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on Wednesday, while a week heavy in US economic data including a GDP revision, inflation, factory and services activity is set to climax on Friday with the monthly jobs report.

Oil prices jumped in volatile trading after falling as much as 2 percent, recouping losses as the market reacted to the shaky prospect of major producers being able to agree output cuts later this week. Crude slightly pared gains after Reuters reported OPEC experts did not agree on details of an output deal.

US crude last rose 2.1 percent to $47.01 a barrel and Brent traded at $48.17, up 2.0 percent on the day.

Industrial metals also remained red hot on hopes of strong demand for property and infrastructure investment in China and the United States. Chinese steel futures jumped nearly 6 percent.

Spot gold rose 0.7 percent to $1,191.61 an ounce. US gold futures added 1.1 percent to $1,191.70 an ounce. Copper was little changed at $5,881.15 a tonne.

In the bond market, the 10-year US Treasury yield hit a session low at 2.312 percent. Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 14/32 in price to yield 2.3196 percent.

US Treasury yields fell from last week’s multi-month or multi-year highs on month-end buying and views that the selloff that followed the surprise US presidential election victory of Donald Trump earlier this month may have gone too far.