Oil Prices Stabilise, Gold Down

Oil prices stabilise after a period of weakness, but uncertainty remains on SPR release details.

• Brent futures stabilised off the lows having come under modest selling pressure during early Asia hours. Brent heads through the London close higher by 0.8% at $80.93 having briefly breached the short-term support of $80.20 (Nov 4 low) earlier in the session. The break of this level signals scope for a deeper corrective pullback as the recent overbought condition unwinds. Potential is seen for weakness towards $78.42, Oct 7 low.
• WTI is lagging very slightly, up 0.5% to $78.76 which sees the Brent-WTI spread nudge out to $2.16, largely unchanged today and still at late Oct highs. The benchmark continues to underperform with markets remaining on watch for any comments from the White House on a possible SPR release.
• Gold has dipped lower today at $1861.33 as it pulls back from the recent bullish trend on marginally more hawkish Fedspeak. It remains above the previous resistance level of $1834 (the Sep 3 high) ever since last week's US CPI, although has just dipped below $1863.3, 76.4% of the Jun-Aug sell-off.
• Potential USD risk tomorrow with Clarida speaking at 1215ET on Global Monetary Policy Coordination.