Little Changed After Wednesday Plunge

WTI and Brent have moved back to near neutral levels after an early pop higher in Asia-Pac hours, which came alongside the uptick in e-minis that we have fleshed out elsewhere.

• This comes after the pressure in the equity space dragged crude lower on Wednesday, with the two major crude benchmarks shedding ~$2.00 come settlement time as the worsening European COVID backdrop and subsequent lockdowns create headwinds for crude demand.
• Elsewhere, the API and DoE weekly inventory readings provided alternate sources of pressure, with crude stocks seeing larger than expected builds in both datasets, despite some slightly more supportive developments on the product side.
• The latest daily BSEE estimate noted that ~66.6% of U.S. Gulf of Mexico production has been shut-in. This will provide some skew to the immediate weekly inventory data releases.