Oil continues to rise, gold rallies

Oil recovery continues

Oil prices are a little higher this morning as they continue to rebound strongly from their lows. Brent and WTI have recovered almost 15% from the lows a few weeks ago as traders continue to price in stronger Chinese demand. At the same time, the US is looking to refill the SPR after huge withdrawals during last year’s oil price spike.

The outlook remains highly uncertain though which should ensure oil prices remain highly volatile. The G7 price cap has had little impact so far, the same can be said of Russia’s response, but that could change if oil prices keep moving higher, nudging Russian crude ever closer to the cap level and forcing some very difficult decisions.

Finding momentum

Gold is rallying strongly on Tuesday, up more than 1% and gathering momentum after seeing it slip in recent weeks. The yellow metal appeared to be stuttering around $1,800 but that’s suddenly changed, perhaps buoyed by the mild risk-aversion we’re seeing in the markets and the expectation that the environment is looking more favourable.

This could be a year in which global growth slows significantly and traders are questioning whether that will warrant monetary policy to be loosened later in 2023. Central banks have pushed back strongly against the idea and I imagine the IMF would too at this point but we could see markets moving in that direction if the data doesn’t continue to haunt us.

For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar: www.marketpulse.com/economic-events/

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