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Oil prices, much like many of the U.S. investment markets, moved lower Monday, with West Texas Crude dropping to around $65 per barrel, an over 4% drop in one day. Much of the concern, according to Scott Bauer with Prosper Trading Academy is China, and the ongoing struggles with the coronavirus.

“The expansion unfortunately of the Delta variant there, and their lack of demand, or the massive slowdown if you will, and they’re just not importing the amount of oil that everyone thought they were going to.  And that has really put a scare into the entire marketplace."

On Monday, Goldman Sachs downgraded its forecast for Chinese GDP growth for 2021 from 8.6% to 8.3%, citing Delta variant restrictions in the country. Bauer added the strong U.S. dollar is also impacting the price of commodities, such as oil.

And he recently told Yahoo! Finance that he expects oil prices to return to their upward trajectory in the coming weeks.

“Certainly based on what’s happened in the U.K., it looks as if maybe two to four weeks from now, maybe it’s even six weeks on the longer end, but we may hit the top or the spike in the Delta variant.  And I think when that happens and we start to see cases go down again, which we all hope will be sooner rather than later, we’re going to see an acceleration again.”

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