The price of crude oil was ticking higher Tuesday morning amid reports that China's central bank has injected a large dose of liquidity into the banking sector. However, the IMF's warning of risks to global growth was capping gains.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for November delivery, edged up $0.30 to $89.63 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled at a fresh two-month low mainly on global demand growth concerns after a World Bank report on Asia forecast slowdown in China's economic growth, one of the major oil consumers after the U.S.
This morning, the U.S. dollar continued to recover from a two-week low versus the euro and advancing to a monthly high against sterling. The buck was trading flat versus the Swiss franc and the yen.
In economic news from the euro zone, U.K. industrial output declined 0.5 percent in August from a month ago, when it rose 2.8 percent, the Office for National Statistics showed. The rate of decline matched economists' expectations. Manufacturing output, at the same time, was down 1.1 percent, following a 3.1 percent rise in July. The month-on-month fall exceeded the 0.7 percent decrease forecast by economists.
Meanwhile, data released by the Office for National Statistics showed the U.K.'s trade in goods resulted in a higher-than-expected deficit in August. The visible trade deficit widened to GBP 9.8 billion in August from GBP 7.3 billion in July. Economists expected a deficit of GBP 8.5 billion.
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Market Analysis
May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.