Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Crude oil prices gained ground during the Asian trade session on Friday. Oil traders are digesting comments from Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who said that Russia supports a cut in production to prop prices.
Demand for the black gold has weakened, sending prices lower, as the spread of the deadly coronavirus hurts global economic growth and demand for oil.
As of 1:05 am GMT, the international crude oil futures benchmark, Brent, was trading up 32 cents or 0.6 percent to fetch $55.25 a barrel. This is erasing yesterday’s loss of 0.6 percent.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures also moved higher. This futures contract added 26 cents to trade at $51.21 a barrel. This is extending Thursday’s gain of 0.4 percent.
In Mexico City, on Thursday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia, which is known as OPEC + suggested that they could cut output by an additional 600K barrels per day.
Russia’s foreign Minister, Mr. Sergei Lavrov said that “ we support the idea.”
Crude Oil Traders Wait on Key Labor Data. The NFP and Canadian Employment Change
The non-farm payroll (NFP), will be released by the U.S. Labor Department. This is scheduled for 1:30 pm GMT. The markets are expecting the U.S. economy to add 160K new jobs for the month of January.
The unemployment rate, for the world’s largest economy, is expected to stay steady at 3.5 percent. Also on the schedule are hourly wages, which are expected to tick higher from 0.1 in December to 0.3 percent for January. The labor participation rate will also be monitored.
At the same time the U.S. NFP crosses the wires, Canada will be publishing their monthly employment change. This will also include their hourly wages and unemployment rate.
Canada’s economy is expected to add 15K new jobs in January and their unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 5.6 percent.
Germany and France are releasing monthly industrial production data. Monthly trade data for France and Germany are also on the schedule. Italy will publish monthly retail sales.
