Crude Dips Ahead Of Stocks Data

Crude oil is down this morning, with the July contract having expired last night at $66.93/barrel, August now becomes the front-month for WTI crude, currently standing at $67.43/barrel.

A lot of the bullish enthusiasm that was seen a month or so ago seems to have waned. The market seems to have switched from "Hey, the great recovery is underway" to more like "Thank God, the slowdown has slowed down."

Wall Street suffered it's biggest one-day loss in two months last night, and cautious comments from the World Bank regarding the uncertain nature of any recovery have got the market thinking that maybe it has got a little ahead of itself.

There is also concern over the usual round of weekly stocks data due out today/tomorrow, after last weeks numbers showed an unexpected rise in inventories.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) will release it's US stocks numbers at around 21.30 BST tonight, and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) will give us it's version at around 15.30 BST tomorrow.