Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Crude Oil Rallies to $101.60 a Barrel on Inventory Data

Crude oil climbed to a two-week high on Wednesday's trading session following a government report that showed a rise in U.S. gasoline stockpiles and a growing production activity by refineries.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 600,000 barrels to 370.90 million barrels last week, well above expectations for a 1.6 million barrels decline, said the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Crude oil began today's session at $99.20 a barrel, and dropped to as low as $98.50 a barrel. However, following the higher-than-expected inventories data, crude saw a sharp bullish correction, and reached as high as the $101.60 level, marking a two-week high.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the most significant economic release looks to be the U.S. Preliminary Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data, which is scheduled at 12:30 GMT. This release tends to have a large impact on both equity markets and on forex trading and traders are advised to be prepared.