BREAKING NEWS

US crude gets crushed on markets as share trading turns cautious

By REUTERS

APRIL 20, 2020 15:11

Caution recaptured world markets on Monday as a near 30% drubbing for US WTI crude oil kicked off a busy week of data and earnings that will drive home the damage being inflicted by global coronavirus lockdowns.

Europe's stock markets made a groggy start, with the pan-regional EUROSTOXX 600 flopping back into the red as London's FTSE, Germany's DAX and Paris, Milan and Madrid all fell more than 1%.

E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 tumbled nearly 2% too, after Wall Street had enjoyed a strong end to last week, though even that barely reflected the carnage in oil markets.

With some global storage facilities nearly full to capacity, the 'front-month' May benchmark US crude contract was down $5.40, or 29.5%, to just under $13 a barrel - the lowest since March 1999.

European benchmark Brent was down a more manageable 5% at $26.60 a barrel, but it all pointed to the same problem - too much supply, not enough demand.

"For oil there is a bit of a technical story (with storage), but still, if energy consumption is down 30% and OPEC reduces supply by 10%, there is still a large gap," said Rabobank's head of macro strategy, Elwin de Groot.

Equity and other major markets however were still trading relatively robustly and largely on the newsflow of the European virus numbers gradually coming down, he added.

The S&P 500 has still rallied 30% from its March low, thanks in part to the extreme easing steps taken by the Federal Reserve. The Fed has bought nearly $1.3 trillion of Treasuries alone, and many billions of non-sovereign debt it would historically have never gone near.

"The question is, are markets underestimating this (virus) in terms of the long-term impact on the economy. There will be damage and there will be damage in terms of the consumer psyche," Rabobank's de Groot said.

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