Commodities: Crude jolted off highs after US EIA data shows rise in stores last week
Crude-oil inventories were jolted from their earlier heady levels on Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration revealed an unexpected 1.6m barrels rise in the country's inventories last week.
This rise was contrary to analyst forecasts for a fall of about 435,000 barrels in the government numbers. It followed industry data from the American Petroleum Institute that revealed a 1.8m barrel fall last week.
At about 15:09 GMT, prior to the EIA announcement and in response to the API figures, Nymex-priced WTI crude was up 1.41% to $51.75 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was 1.37% up to $54.91 a barrel.
However, by 15:44 GMT, WTI had trimmed its gains to be up 0.86% at $51.47 a barrel, with Brent easing to be up 0.78% to $54.59 a barrel.
"Unfortunately for oil bulls today's EIA inventories didn't show a similar draw (to API)," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.
"In fact (the EIA data showed stores) rose by 1.57m barrels, pulling prices down from their intra-day highs," he said.
The sharp reaction came as traders continued to mull the potential impact of an extension of the Opec-led output cuts, said Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft, analysts at Accendo Markets.
In the meantime, at about 15:09 GMT, on Comex, gold was down 0.87% to $1247.50 an ounce. Silver fell 0.62% to $18.21 an ounce, and copper rose 2.78% to 268.45 cents a pound.
"Gold has continued to retrace overnight from yesterday afternoon’s highs, even as the US dollar falls back from highs," said van Dulken and Croft.
This was as investors dialled back bets on the safe-haven asset following a perceived loss for right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen in the second French Presidential debate.
"The precious metal has fallen back further from resistance at $1260 to testing 3-day rising lows support at $1255, with a breakdown potentially opening the door for a retracement to the channel floor at $1241."
Hewson added that gold prices had slipped after Wednesday's bumper ADP employment report gave the US dollar and US yields a lift.
The ADP data showed private-sector employment in the US unexpectedly rose in March, with employers adding 263,00 jobs from February, against forecasts for a rise of 187,000.
The major item on the US economic agenda for Wednesday was the US Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes, which were due out tonight.
On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mixed. Zinc rose 1.03%, copper added 0.46%, aluminum fell 0.72% and tin shed 0.12%.
"Copper prices have had a good day with the return of Chinese markets after their public holiday," said Hewson.
Zinc improved after floods in Peru affected shipment routes from local mines to smelting plants. Peru was the world's second largest producer of that metal.