Friday, as traders and investors anxiously focused on the euro’s positive economic outlook, the single currency climbed and recorded its massive weekly rise in a month. It settled at $1.1839 after adding 0.1% to its value. The currency climbed by 1% this week indicating its largest rise since September 9.
The euro’s recovery was also reinforced by strong Chinese trade data for September and a weak dollar. Kit Juckes, FX strategist at Societe Generale in London, said that if the European economic recovery remained along with the European Central Bank pushing ahead with policy stabilization, traders would see the single currency rise above 1.30 in a span of 18 months or so.
Thursday, according to the IEA, U.S. oil inventories were falling last week side by side with massive abrupt buildup of U.S. gasoline. Crude inventories slumped to 2.7 million barrels per day.
This dropped was due to Hurricane Harvey that led to the shutdown of nearly half of the Gulf Coast’s refining capacity at the end of August.
Gasoline inventories, in contrast, edged up by 2.5 million barrels against the estimated 480,000 barrel drop, causing the United States gasoline futures to prolong losses.