Brent oil price dips under $77 as Europe spooks markets

Brent crude oil prices open the week’s trading under the $77 mark on Monday dropping $1.17 to $76.76 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange as continued debt problems in Europe spook global markets.

Meanwhile, the euro sank to four year lows as angst over Europe’s debt crisis led investors to pull more money from stocks in favor of havens such as gold.

“At the moment all of the markets are on the way of declining further on the euro crisis. I think euro against dollar is possibly to go down to about $1.20, triggering another round of rectification in the market,” said Ken Hasegawa, a commodity derivatives manager at brokerage Newedge in Japan.

Short-term there is no obvious reason to think the euro is going to stop declining here,” said Sean Callow, a senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Sydney. “Growth is going to be extremely weak for a long time. Positioning clearly isn’t holding the euro back.”