Closing Commodities: Crude erases initial morning gains & closes with a loss for the day after EIA reported mixed data; natural gas extends yesterday's gains ahead of tomorrow's inventory data release
- Crude oil erased all initial morning gains and turned negative after EIA reported mixed data; crude build below expectations coupled with a gasoline draw below Consensus
- April crude oil futures fell $0.19 (-0.4%) to $53.82/barrel
- Reminder: Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
- EIA highlights:
- Crude oil inventories had a build of +1.5 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of about +3.079 mln barrels).
- Gasoline inventories had a draw of -0.5 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -1.789 mln barrels).
- Distillate inventories had a draw of -0.9 mln barrels.
- Natural gas extended yesterday's notable +3.4% gains ahead of tomorrow's EIA data
- April natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+0.7%) at $2.80/MMBtu
- EIA natural gas data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
- Expectations call for EIA to report a draw of just around ~4 bcf, compared to last week's draw of 114 bcf. If realized, this would be the smallest winter draw on record.
- Reminder: The release of Monday's updated 15-day weather forecast shifted moderately warmer, creating downward bias earlier in the week.
- In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's losses on a strong dollar index following yesterday evening's Presidential address to Congress
- April gold ended today's session down $4.40 (-0.4%) to $1249.30/oz
- May silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $18.48/oz
- The dollar index was +0.6% around the 101.72 level
- Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.7% around the 88.32 level