(New York) Oil prices ended broadly stable on Monday after oscillating between green and red, following mixed signals from Chinese economic activity and awaiting US inflation on Tuesday.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in May, gained 0.15% to $82.21.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in April, lost 0.10% to $77.93.
In the first part of the day, prices fell “due to concerns about the Chinese economy,” recalled Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group.
Bjarne Schieldrop, analyst at Seb, noted that “signals emanating from China’s National People’s Congress” (NPC), meeting on Monday, “regarding stimulus measures have been limited.”
The world’s second largest economy, in the grip of a real estate crisis and battling unemployment, ended its annual parliamentary session on Monday.
The Asian giant, which posted staggering growth rates in the 1990s and 2000s, set itself last week at the opening of Parliament a much more modest objective for 2024, at “around 5%”.
He admitted that this target would be “not easy” to achieve and that “latent economic risks” in certain sectors continued to drag down economic activity, without however announcing a plan detailing ways to resolve the problems.
This data “seemed to push prices down” which then rose again “because of concerns about supply which remains low on average”, explained Phil Flynn.
Furthermore, “investors are focused on American inflation,” recalled DNB analysts.
The release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for February in the United States is expected on Tuesday. Projections are for a price increase of 0.4% in February compared to +0.3% in January. Over one year, inflation should be stable at 3.1%, according to estimates from Briefing.com.
“If inflation rises, this could strengthen the dollar and put pressure on oil prices,” Mr. Flynn said.
Crude prices are in fact denominated in dollars and a stronger greenback increases the cost of a barrel of crude.
DNB analysts also noted that currency traders “are keeping an eye on the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, which remain deadlocked.”