This is the last working week of the outgoing year. Almost all countries around the world are adopting their new budgets and are publishing annual reports and forecasts. People around the world are preparing to celebrate the New Year and as expected, many investors have decided to take profits. We've seen racing markets before the Christmas holidays. Major currencies and stock markets are experiencing reduced volatility and have entered the flat trends.
However, yesterday, Tuesday December 26, in Libya there was an explosion on an oil pipeline own by Waha Oil, after which the company stopped pumping crude oil in the Es Sider terminal. It is estimated that this incident led to a loss of 100,000 barrels per market day and against the background of the events the oil quotations soared to two one-year highs, as the price of WTI crude oil reached the level of 60.01 dollars per barrel, and the Brent went up to 66.53 dollars per barrel. At the moment quotes have declined and prices fell back to 0.65% and 1.11%, respectively.
To continue with commodity assets, since the beginning of the month all metals continue to rise in price against the background of the weakening of the US dollar.
Today in the United States we expect the publication of the real estate market data and consumer confidence index for December.
Overall, except for the force majeure in Libya, so far we see no fundamental factors which can have a significant impact on the markets.