WTI CRUDE OIL GRINDS HIGHER PAST $80.00 DESPITE DOWNBEAT CHINA INFLATION. API INVENTORIES EYED

WTI crude oil refreshes intraday high near $80.40 as it cheers mildly positive market sentiment, as well as a softer US Dollar, heading into Tuesday’s European session. Even so, the black gold remains within a one-week-old trading range of about $2.0 as full markets return after an extended weekend.

That said, the US Dollar Index (DXY) snaps a four-day uptrend while declining to 102.35 by the press time, down 0.20% intraday. In doing so, the greenback bears the burden of comments from the Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank of New York President, as well as the Fed’s Vice Chairman of the rate-setting committee, John Williams, as he cites increasing odds of easy inflation. On the same line were statements from Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer of global fixed income at BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, who said late Monday, “The Federal Reserve may not need to raise interest rates further to fight inflation, as the fallout from last month's turmoil in the banking sector and a series of recent labor data point to a slowing US economy,” per Reuters.

On a different page, the end of China’s military drills near Taiwan joins the Aussie-China trade deal and hopes for more investment in Japan to portray the cautious optimism in the markets. Additionally favoring the optimists were upbeat headlines from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva who said on Monday that the global economy is estimated to grow less than 3% in 2023, with India and China expected to account for half of the global growth this year.

Even so, CME’s FedWatch Tool prints nearly 71% odds of the US Central Bank's 0.25% rate hike in May and challenges the market sentiment, as well as the WTI crude oil buyers. Also weighing on the risk appetite and the energy benchmark’s prices could be the downbeat China inflation data and cautious mood ahead of top-tier US data/events.

Above all, the OPEC supply cuts join improving hopes of more energy demand from the world’s largest energy consumer, namely China, to underpin WTI crude oil’s upside momentum.

Moving on, the weekly print of the Oil inventories from the American Petroleum Institute (API), previous -4.346M, could direct WTI prices. However, major attention will be given to IMF’s spring summit and US inflation, as well as the Fed Minutes, for clear directions.