Oil drops amid caution over OPEC meeting; stocks mixed

“The market in generally is just going sideways as investors are awaiting many key events including the OPEC meeting and USA job data”, said Andrew Sullivan, managing director for sales trading at Haitong International Securities Group Ltd.in Hong Kong.

More broadly, the outflows in emerging-market equities since the US presidential election on expectations of higher interest rates under President-elect Donald Trump have taken a pause.

The strength of the greenback was extended to the stocks as the Fed rate hike provided significant support to the upward momentum of the currency.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average sank 55 points, or 0.3 percent, to 19,097 as of 9:42 a.m.

The heavier index, representing all shares, also shed 26 points, or 0.6 percent, to settle at 4,120.47, on a value turnover of P12.4 billion.

CLEARANCE: Consumer discretionary stocks were among the hardest hit.

Barclays and Standard Chartered were down by between 0.3 and 0.5 percent after failing some parts of the test. Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC, which had adequate capital, were roughly flat. In Taiwan, the Taiwan Weighted declined 0.32 percent as the energy and rubber sectors struggled to move up. Tokyo closed down 0.3 percent, while Hong Kong edged down 0.2 percent in the afternoon and Shanghai ended up 0.2 percent.

Vietnam’s VN Index climbed 1 percent, while equity gauges in Indonesia, Taiwan and India rose at least 0.5 percent.

Outside of the commodities sector, investors appeared inclined to take on more risk, with Italian stocks up 0.72 per cent and the banking sub-index up 2.6 per cent.

After opening little changed, the FTSE index declined in early dealings with European markets also lower.

Meanwhile, as the market awaits for the result of OPEC meeting, the crude oil prices suffer on the lower ground.

On the mid-cap FTSE 250 index, property listing and price comparison website Zoopla briefly hit its best ever level after it announced strong results and an optimistic forecast, despite fears of a Brexit-related slowdown on the United Kingdom housing market.

In today’s morning trading, WTI crude oil prices were down $1.24, or 2.6%, at $45.84 a barrel.

The price of Brent crude slid fell 3.57% to $46.52 a barrel on worries that oil producers would fail to agree limits on output. Energy and raw materials were among the biggest decliners, weighed down by a slump in commodity prices. USDCAD consolidated losses near yesterday’s low of $1.3395 as the loonie gained strength.

Saudi Arabia, the oil cartel’s biggest producer, is key to any deal.

Others believed even if OPEC were to reach a deal on Wednesday, ensuring compliance from every member to reduce output could be an issue. Will the amount of output freeze be enough?

However, Iran and Iraq are proving the most hard countries to fold into the deal, as Iran only recently enjoyed a lift in economic sanctions, allowing it to trade in the global oil market again, and Iraq has asked for an exemption given its current war with ISIS. The pullback was partly due to uncertainty ahead of the highly anticipated OPEC meeting on Wednesday.