Oil Prices Dropped For Rising Crude Inventories, Gold Also Fell

After the news of an unprecedented rise in U.S. crude inventories last week, oil changed in a distributed order. U.S. light crude WTI gave up 0.3% to $53.13 a barrel for Nymex’s February futures agreement, while North Sea Brent advanced 0.1% to $56.10.

On Thursday, gold dropped 0.1 percent to $1,865.90 for the February Futures contract on the Comex.

The new Democratic president, Joe Biden, arrived at the White House on Wednesday, signed several executive orders from his Oval Office that reversed actions taken by his predecessor, Donald Trump. The United States will, in particular, return to the WHO and the Paris climate agreement to avoid constructing the wall dividing them from Mexico. Also, much to the chagrin of Ottawa, which backed the initiative, approval to develop the infamous Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the United States was revoked.

Joe Biden declared Thursday via the President @POTUS of the United States Twitter account on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now taken more than 400,000 lives in the United States that he was planning to sign a dozen executive orders to fight the epidemic sharply, to extend research, distribute vaccines and reopen schools and workplaces safer.

Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) was down to $15.26, dropping -2.12 percent. Better-than-expected quarterly accounts were announced by the oil and gas pipeline provider, but it remains concerned about trends in projects in U.S. shale oil and gas basins. EPS rose 4 percent to 27 cents in the three months finished, against a consensus of 24 cents. Profits amounted to $3.11 billion, down 7% year-on-year.

The new economic indicators, published on Thursday, are very promising in the United States. Last week, weekly jobless registrations dropped marginally more than expected, hitting 900,000 from the previous week’s 926,000 (revised).

The Philly Fed activity index for the Philadelphia-area rose sharply to 26.5 in January from 9.1 in December. Finally, on an annualized basis, housing starts rose by 5.8 percent in December to 1.669 million, its highest rise since 2006.