Oil Follows Asian Stocks Higher

Oil prices hovered near two-week highs on Monday, buoyed by advances in Asian equity markets, though bears still expect pressure from the low dollar and increased U.S. production to weigh on prices in the coming days. The United States added rigs last week for the fourth consecutive week, the longest stretch of increases since June. U.S. WTI futures were trading up 71 cents per barrel to $62.38 as of 2:03 p.m. HK/SIN, up 1.15 percent. Brent crude futures were up 0.80 percent to $65.36 per barrel.

The volatility that has been fueling the markets in recent sessions subsided somewhat on Monday due to holidays in China, India and the United States. Still, Asian markets were broadly higher, riding the wave of optimism that began last week. Australia’s ASX 200 was up 0.64 percent, South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.52 percent and the Shanghai Composite was up 0.46 percent in the early afternoon. Japan’s Nikkei was up 1.72 percent.

Currency Market Movements

The dollar continued its struggle on Monday, hovering near three-year lows against the yen and remaining near lows against most of its trading partners. Confidence in the dollar has been easing lately over concerns that the country’s budget deficit which is expected to hit $1 trillion by 2019 due to increased government spending and notable corporate tax cuts.

The dollar hit a low of 105.545 yen on Friday but rebounded slightly on Monday to trade at 106.55 yen, a 0.24 percent increase. The dollar was marginally lower against the euro, trading at $1.2407, after the euro hit a three-year high of $1.2556 on Friday.

Sara Patterson
Sara Patterson has a Master’s Degree in political science and enjoys analyzing both current events and the international markets to get a fuller perspective of the currency market. Before turning to financial writing, she taught English writing skills to high-school age students. Sara’s work has been published on various financial and Forex blogs.