Higher Open Expected For US Markets: Oil Price Jumps

Higher open likely for the U.S markets Wednesday after key U.S. stock index futures stood up on Wednesday morning.

At 5:50 a.m. ET, Dow Jones futures indicated a positive open beyond 40 points. Futures on the S&P and Nasdaq were also up.

This marks recovery after President Donald Trump’s comments on China jolted the markets on Tuesday.

Trump’s comments pulled down Dow Jones 23.53 points or 0.1 percent. The President said both the U.S and China have to traverse a long way and warned America will not hesitate to slap tariffs on $325 billion worth of Chinese goods “if we want.”

Trump’s comments belied the truce in Osaka between the two presidents against slapping new tariffs on each other’s goods.

Wednesday earnings results will include Bank of America, IBM, and Netflix before the bell.

The U.S retail data on Tuesday showed retail sales in June crossed expectations. There was a 0.4 percent growth in sales breaching economists’ estimates of a 0.1 percent increase in June.

Among new data, weekly mortgage applications, housing starts figures for June are expected in the first half of the day.

Oil price up

Oil prices jumped on Wednesday after recovering from the downcast levels in past sessions.

Brent crude futures moved up 0.4 percent at $64.60. In the previous session, it was down by 3 percent.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures also moved up 0.2 percent at $57.68 by 0636 GMT.

Tuesday’s fall in oil prices was a fall out of President Trump’s statement that there is progress on the Iran front and tensions in the Middle East will ebb.

Meanwhile, new crude data showed the fall in U.S. crude inventories were lower than expected, according to industry group American Petroleum Institute (API).

The government data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is expected Wednesday.

According to Abhishek Kumar, head of analytics at Interfax Energy in London, the recovery of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S after Hurricane Barry will check broad price gains in oil. In recent weeks, the U.S-Iran tensions were supporting the prices of oil futures.

Asian markets down

Asia stocks fell on Wednesday hit by overnight developments on the US-China trade front amplified by Trump’s hint that fresh tariffs on Chinese goods are not out.

In mainland China, the Shanghai composite fell 0.2 percent while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dipped 0.18 percent.

In Japan, Nikkei 225 was down 0.31 percent while the Topix ended lower. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.91 percent while Australia’s ASX 200 was up 0.49 percent.

A notable development in the region was the fall in Singapore’s June exports. The non-oil domestic exports crashed 17.3 percent year-on-year crossing the expectation of a 10 percent contraction.

It was the largest decline since February 2013, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

European stocks were subdued in Wednesday’s session after President Trump’s statement reignited concerns over the trade war.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 traded just below the flatline mid-morning.

Gold price tumbles

Gold prices fell on Wednesday after the dollar gained strength on robust U.S. retail sales data.

Rising hopes over an interest rate cut and the continued stalemate over trade talks between Washington and Beijing saved gold prices from a steep decline.

Spot gold fell 0.1 percent at $1,404.75 per ounce as of 0719 GMT. The U.S. gold futures were down 0.3 percent to $1,407 an ounce.

Brian Lan of GoldSilver Central in Singapore noted that “we had positive retail data from the U.S., gold came down a little.”