Oil Up Ahead of OPEC Meet; Dollar Slips, Stocks Fall

Reuters

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Crude futures rose in choppy trading on Monday ahead of an OPEC meeting later in the week that could reap production cuts, while the dollar pared losses and U.S. stocks fell.

The dollar index dipped 0.24 percent after having fallen as much as 0.8 percent. The U.S. currency sank as much as 1.6 percent to 111.32 Japanese yen before recovering to 112.1.

Most analysts said the dip in the dollar since Friday was simply a correction with the greenback still on track for its strongest two-month gain since early 2015.

The index hit a near 14-year high of 102.05 on Thursday before falling on Friday and slipping further to 101.32 on Monday.

"The last few days of November and the first few days of December will be chock full of risk events, so that's provided a convenient backdrop to take profit on the dollar's big rally," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

The euro was little changed versus the greenback after rising nearly 1 percent to $1.0684 following the election of Francois Fillon as the center-right candidate in next year's French presidential vote. It was last at $1.0606.

Fillon, a former French prime minister, is the favorite to become president, with a flash opinion poll suggesting he would easily beat far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in a second round run-off. Markets worry that Le Pen, who has promised a referendum on membership of the European Union if she wins, would threaten the future of the currency bloc.

On Wall Street, consumer and financial stocks weighed on the S&P 500 after rallying last week. Recently battered stocks in utilities and telecom services posted the largest gains.

"We did have a big run up, of course, in the reaction to the election, a lot of economically-sensitive sectors like finance had big runs," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

"Now we are seeing a little bit of profit taking waiting on the next big driver."

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 54.24 points, or 0.28 percent, to 19,097.9, the S&P 500 lost 11.63 points, or 0.53 percent, to 2,201.72 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 30.11 points, or 0.56 percent, to 5,368.81.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.85 percent, while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.28 percent.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.9 percent.

OPEC MEETS IN BUSY DATA WEEK

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on Wednesday, while a week heavy in U.S. economic data including a GDP revision, inflation, factory and services activity is set to climax on Friday with the monthly jobs report.

Oil prices jumped in volatile trading after falling as much as 2 percent, as the market reacted to the shaky prospect of major producers being able to agree to output cuts later this week.

U.S. crude last rose 1.9 percent to $46.91 a barrel and Brent traded at $48.04, up 1.7 percent on the day.

Market watchers expected prices to remain volatile until OPEC's Wednesday meeting offers the market a definitive answer as to whether OPEC and non-OPEC producers can agree on cuts.

Industrial metals also remained red hot on hopes of strong demand for property and infrastructure investment in China and the United States. Chinese steel futures jumped nearly 6 percent.

Spot gold rose 0.9 percent to $1,193.37 an ounce. U.S. gold futures added 1.2 percent to $1,192.60 an ounce. Copper was little changed at $5,881.15 a tonne.

U.S. Treasury yields fell from last week's multi-month or multi-year highs on month-end buying and views that the selloff that followed the surprise U.S. presidential election victory of Donald Trump earlier this month may have gone too far.

"The sell-off has been quite dramatic," said Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy at Societe Generale in New York. "It has kind of run ahead of itself."

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit a session low at 2.312 percent. Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 16/32 in price to yield 2.3142 percent.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak, Sam Forgione, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Dion Rabouin; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Richard Chang)

Copyright 2016 Thomson Reuters.



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