Monday's Market Minute: Oil And What Lies Ahead For The Fed

With the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities sending crude prices sharply higher, today’s focus will be on the WTI and Brent Crude products.

The WTI broke out on the news to 63.34 overnight before pulling back when the Trump administration announced it would authorize the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to balance out the production losses. The attacks have taken out 5.7 million barrels of daily crude production, which is 50% of the kingdom’s oil output and 5% of the global market. The spike in oil and geopolitical tension have U.S. indices lower ahead of the cash open, signaling a weak open for stocks.

But it’s not just crude prices to keep an eye on this week. We also have central bank activity to focus on. First, the FOMC meeting begins tomorrow and the policy decision will come Wednesday, with expectations for a 25-basis-point cut. We also have meetings this week from the Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and Swiss National Bank. Last week, we saw the Euro currency trade new lows for the year, while the U.S. dollar remains poised near multi-year highs after being fueled by global central bank dovishness. Last but not least, we cap off a big week Friday with quadruple witching expiration. All this means we could be in for a volatile week!

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