OPEC+ reach agreement to boost Oil; NFP disappoints

Summary:

• Oil rallies as OPEC+ announce production cuts

• USDCAD swoons as NFP misses and Canaiain jobs beat

• Bounce seen in stocks fades

• Crypto tumbles as SEEC postpone ETF decision

It’s been a wild week for oil traders with several big swings in the market, but as the dust settles it appears that the price may have found a floor as it looks to recover from after the large recent declines. Rumours that OPEC+ would and then wouldn’t reduce their production have caused the markets to seesaw but it now seems like a deal has been reached which will see a target 1.2m bpd reduction. This is believed to compose of around 800k barrels from OPEC and 400k barrels from non-OPEC members which will likely be delivered by Russia. There’s been a large push higher in the price of Oil on this news and the market has once more moved back near recent highs and possible resistance around 63.60

The latest jobs data from the US has served to reaffirm the notion that while the labour market in the world’s largest economy remains robust, jos growth may have peaked. The non farm employment change for November showed 155k jobs were added, lower than the 198k expected and the third time in the past 5 releases that this metric has come in below the 200k mark. The decline marked a pretty sharp drop on the previous reading of 237k which itself was revised down from 250k beforehand.

If the US data was a little disappointing and on the soft side, the Canadian figures released at the same time were very strong, and in fact the highest since 1976. Employment change for November came in at 94.1k vs 10k expected, a big increase on the 11.2k seen last time out. Even more pleasing for Canadians was the composition of the jobs as nearly all of them were full time. USDCAD has erased the entire gains seen since the dovish BOC on Wednesday with the latest North American jobs figures providing a dual push lower in this pair.

Stock indices began the day brightly with gains seen in all the major markets as they looked to recover from their recent declines. However, the upside has faded as the day wore on and most markets are now back in the red and set to post sizable weekly declines. Comments from Trump aide Navarro have done little to boost sentiment after stating that the US would push ahead with additional tariffs if a deal with China isn’t reached in the next 90 days.    

Recent weeks have not been successful for the cryptocurrency market to say the least. Today’s trading brings another losses as major coins have sunk dramatically. EOS (EOS on xStation5), Dash (DASH on xStation5) and Stellar (STELLAR on xStation5) have experienced over 10% drops. As a result, the capitalization of the whole market has declined to a little below $110 billion. The US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF application. The Commission pushed a deadline to February 27, 2019. However, the SEC’s step was widely expected, and it is not the first postponement of this decision as SEC has already postponed it several times this year. “The Commission finds it appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider this proposed rule change”, as the SEC’s official statement reports.