Global Markets: Oil prices rebound as some traders say slide is overdone

Crude oil prices, caught up in the wider weakness of the financial markets, are staging a recovery today amid perceptions that the recent slide may have been overdone: WTI +6.1% to $45.11/bbl, Brent +4.8% to $52.91/bbl.

WTI crude plunged below $43/bbl on Monday for the first time since June 2017 and has slid more than 40% since early October.

“There is a little bit of over-extension to the downside linked to global market fears,” says Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob. “It’s all about equities.”

While economic worries have weighed, the oil outlook is not as weak as in 2016 when a supply glut built up because OPEC this time is trying to prop up the market, Jakob says.

Recent selling in oil “has felt less fundamentally driven and more a function of the overall market meltdown as increased equity volatility and growing macro concerns have weighed on a number of asset classes,” according to analysts at Tudor Pickering & Holt.

Among today’s oil and gas movers: XOM +0.5%, CVX +1.2%, RDS.A, +1.2%, BP +1.1%, COP +2.6%, APC +2.4%, NBL +2.6%, HES +2.9%, MRO +4.5%, MPC +3.2%, VLO +2.2%, PSX +2.9%, APA +1.4%, DVN+1.8%, PXD +2.8%, CXO +2.3%, EOG +1.8%, CLR +2.1%, CHK +14.2%, SWN +3.7%, RRC +1.7%, EQT +2.7%, OXY +2.2%, KMI +2.3%, EPD+1.9%, ET +5.3%.