Oil prices rise slightly after the fall of nearly 8% of the "Black Friday"

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices rebounded after Friday's heavy losses, but remained under pressure, with Brent crude below $ 60 a barrel because of weak fundamentals and weakness. financial markets.

The Brent crude futures contract at the beginning of the month, LCOc1, stood at $ 59.20 per barrel at 00:49 GMT, up 40 cents (0.7%) from their last close.

United States West Cluster (WTI) crude oil futures were up 16 cents, or 0.3%, to $ 50.58 per barrel.

Monday's gains, however, did not compensate for Friday's nearly 8% drop, which traders have already dubbed "Black Friday".

Greg McKenna, an independent Australian financial analyst, said there had been a "total surrender of crude oil."

The downward pressure comes from rising supply and slowing growth in demand, which should result in a surplus of oil supply in 2019.

Biggest decline

Beyond weak fundamentals, oil markets are also impacted by a slowdown in financial markets in the broad sense.

"2018 has clearly marked the end of the 10-year Asian credit bull market due to tighter financial conditions in Asia (especially China), and we expect this to be the case in 2019," Morgan Stanley said in a statement. note published Sunday.

"We still do not think we are at the bottom of the cycle," the US bank said.

Oil markets were also dragged down by the strength of the US dollar .DXY., Which appreciated against most other currencies this year, due to rising interest rates that took money away from investors in other currencies, as well as assets such as oil. also more risky than the greenback.

"Everything against the USD is under pressure right now," McKenna said.

The trade war between the world's two largest economies, the United States and China, is another risk to global trade and global economic growth.

"The trade dispute between the United States and China represents a downside risk as we expect the United States to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from China by the first quarter 2019, "said US bank JP Morgan in a note released Friday.