WTI oil trading near $77, lowest crude price since September 2010

WTI oil futures open Tuesday’s trading session hovering around $77 a barrel, which is the lowest price for the US contract since September 2010 as weak data and recession fears continue to drive oil prices and stock markets lower.

Latest WTI Oil Price

US Light crude oil futures for November 2011 delivery was trading at $77.16 a barrel, 07.50 GMT this morning on the NYMEX. WTI oil fell $1.59, or 2 percent lower, to finish the Monday at $77.61.

Recession Fears

In the UK, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) said it saw little prospect of an early recovery. It called for the coalition Government to go further and faster with its deficit reduction programme to improve longer term prospects and introduce incentives to provide some growth stimulus.

Only 8 percent of the 616 CMI members polled for the organisation’s half yearly economic survey expected to see any growth in the economy over the next 12 months, and more than two thirds felt the UK economy will sink back into recession.

Meanwhile, in the US the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) notified clients that the US economy is indeed tipping into a new recession and there’s nothing that policy makers can do to head it off.

ECRI’s recession call isn’t based on just one or two leading indexes, but on dozens of specialised leading indexes, including the US Long Leading Index, which was the first to turn down before the Arab Spring and Japanese earthquake, to be followed by downturns in the Weekly Leading Index and other shorter leading indexes.

US Stock Markets

US stock markets closed off yesterday’s session lower for a second day in a row with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed out the session lower by 2.38 percent at 10,653.64 and the Nasdaq finished lower by 3.29 percent at 2,335.83.

The loss on Wall Street followed sharp gains for the US dollar, with the US Dollar Index hitting a high of 79.614 late Monday. The index, which tracks the US dollar against six major world currencies, later slipped back to 79.550.

A strong US dollar tends to depress oil prices, as crude oil is denominated in the US currency.

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