The price of crude oil was moving lower Wednesday morning amid anxiety over Spain's bailout plan after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy played down expectations of an immediate bailout for his debt-ridden nation.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for November delivery were down $0.54 to $91.35 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled lower after fluctuating for most of the day due mainly to lack of direction with investors awaiting crucial supply data and other major macroeconomic data from the U.S. later in the week.
Tuesday after the market hours, the API said U.S. crude oil inventories rose 462,000 barrels, while gasoline inventories were down by 59,000 barrels in the weekended September 28.
This morning, the U.S. dollar was was trading near a weekly low versus the euro, while steady near its 2-week high against sterling. The buck was advancing toward a 2-week high against the yen, while trading flat versus the Swiss franc.
In economic news, euro zone's private sector contracted at a slower pace than estimated earlier in September, a detailed result of a survey by Markit Economics showed. The composite output index, that measures performance of both manufacturing and service sectors, fell to a four-month low of 46.1 in September from 46.3 in August. This was slightly above the flash estimate of 45.9.
Meanwhile, data from Eurostat showed that euro zone retail sales rose unexpectedly in August. Retail sales were up 0.1 percent on a monthly basis, the same rate of growth as seen in June and July. Economists had forecast a 0.1 percent drop for August.
Elsewhere, Germany's services sector contracted in September, according to final data from Markit Economics. The Services Business Activity Index came in at 49.7 in September, up from 48.3 in August, survey data revealed.
Traders will look to the private sector employment report from the ADP due out at 8.15 a.m ET. Economists expect for an addition of 140,000 jobs by the sector in September following an addition of 201,000 jobs in August.
The Institute for Supply Management is scheduled to release the results of its non-manufacturing survey at 10 am ET. The non-manufacturing index is likely to show a reading of 53.5 for September, down from 53.7 in August.
Today during trading hours, the EIA will release its U.S. crude oil inventories report for the weekended September 28. Analysts expect crude oil inventories to move up 1.5 million barrels and gasoline stocks to remain flat last week.
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