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Bloomberg
Oil headed for its first annual decline since 2015, slumping more than 20 percent in a turbulent year that saw fears of supply scarcity turn to expectations of a surplus.
Crude surrendered early gains on Monday and fell as much as 1.3 percent in New York, on track for the worst quarterly drop since the last oil market crash began four years ago. There’s growing concern the US-China trade dispute and tightening Federal Reserve monetary policy are weakening global demand. Five American manufacturing indexes all dropped in December, the first such across-the-board decline in two years.
Stockpiles at a key storage hub in Oklahoma probably rose 1.2 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts released on Monday. While US President Donald Trump touted progress in trade talks earlier in the day, a key manufacturing indicator also showed Chinese factory activity contracting again.