Oil prices headed lower Tuesday for a third consecutive session as traders continued to monitor the Israel-Hamas war while fresh data out of Europe offered more evidence of a slowing economy.
Price action Market drivers The latest release of Israeli hostages by Hamas helped assuage traders’ concerns about the potential for an escalating conflict that could disrupt oil supplies and send prices higher. Ongoing hostage negotiations and the delay of Israel’s ground invasion “did technical damage to the oil charts,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at The Price futures Group.
The “small bit of progress that they are seeing — regarding releasing hostages the fact that Israel has not started its ground invasion — takes a lot of the war premium out of oil,” said Flynn. “Prices fell to hold key support yesterday as far as the 10-day moving average and the 20-day moving average and now look poised to go lower technically unless we get a headline.”