Crude Oil Weekly Fundamental Analysis for April 25-29, 2011

April 25-29, 2011 commodities weekly forecast for oil using graphs and indicators.

Crude oil prices rose over the course of last week, where crude oil prices fell at the start of last week amid the pessimism that dominated markets after the S&P rating agency downgraded the debt outlook for the United States to negative, nevertheless, optimism dominated markets after that, as strong earnings from major U.S. companies led the U.S. dollar to drop against major currencies, and accordingly, crude oil prices rose on the back of a weak dollar.

Markets have become more concerned about the outlook of demand for oil, where rising inflationary pressures are expected to slow down economic growth, and accordingly, oil prices shouldn’t have the same strong momentum to rise, but overall, the general trend so far remains to the upside, until further data is available.

Highlights for this week that will probably affect the Crude Oil direction are:

Wednesday, 14:30:

The Department of Energy will release the weekly petroleum status for the week ending April 22, where the prior report showed that crude oil inventories decreased by 2.3 million barrels.

Wednesday 16:30:

the Federal Open Market Committee will announce the decision on interest rates, where the FOMC will probably leave interest rates unchanged, also the FOMC will probably leave QE2 unchanged to run through June, despite the recent rise in energy prices, which will probably lead to a “transitional” increase in inflation rates according to the Fed.

Wednesday 14:15:

the Fed’s Chairman, Ben Bernanke will hold a press conference for the first time to discuss the Fed’s latest projections on growth, inflation, and unemployment, we should expect markets to give great attention to the press conference, since it’s the latest effort from the Fed to be more transparent in order to improve communications with the public.

Thursday 12:30:

the U.S. Commerce Department will release the advanced estimate for Gross Domestic Product for the first quarter of 2011, where GDP is expected to expand at an annualized pace of 1.8%, compared with the prior expansion in the fourth quarter of 2010 of 3.1%.

Thursday 12:30:

the Jobless Claims for the week ending April 23, will be released, where last week jobless claims dropped to 403,000, where conditions in the labor market are still improving over a gradual pace.

Friday 12:30:

Canada will release the Gross Domestic Product for the month of February, where the Canadian economy expanded in January by 0.5% and 3.3% on monthly and yearly basis.

Friday 12:30:

the United States will release the Income Report for the month of March, where personal income is expected to rise by 0.4%, compared with the prior rise of 0.3% in February, while personal spending is expected to rise by 0.5%, compared with 0.7% in February.

Core PCE is expected to rise in March by 0.1% and 0.9% on monthly and year basis respectively, compared with 0.2% and 0.9% on monthly and yearly basis respectively, although we might witness an upside surprise, since rising energy prices over the past few months started to be reflected through higher inflation rates all around the globe.

Friday 13:45:

the Chicago PMI will be released for the month of April, where the Chicago PMI is expected to show that manufacturing activities slightly eased in April to 70.0, compared with 70.6 reported in March.

(Source: http://www.commoditiesmansion.com/fundamental-analysis/crude-oil-weekly-fundamental-analysis-for-april-25-29-2011/)