Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled down $1.90, or 3.7%, at $49.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after slipping as low as $48.89 a barrel just before the market closed. May Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange settled $1.02 lower at $51.22 a barrel.
Crude prices fell kicked lower by the sinking stock market and a stronger dollar. Traders continue to eye U.S. equities as a proxy for the broader economy, hoping a sustained rally will trickle through to a recovery in oil demand.
The dollar also continued to strengthen, adding further pressure to crude prices. Investors have flocked to crude oil and other commodities as a hedge against a weakening greenback, so a stronger dollar often has the opposite effect.
However, the growing imbalance between massive crude supplies and still-weak demand remains the biggest roadblock to efforts to push higher.
Author: Ksenia Kochneva
