Jerome Powell Speech: Fed Chair doesn't see elevated risk of recession

Despite a temporary pop in interest rate cut expectations, markets are trimming their risk appetite hopes ahead of Friday’s US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) labor figures, which are expected to soften to 200K for February compared to January’s 11-month peak of 353K.

According to the API late Tuesday, the US Weekly Crude Oil Stock for the week ended March 1 grew by a scant 423K barrels, down from the forecast 2.6 million increase and well below the previous week’s addition of 8.428 million barrels. The EIA’s own Crude Oil Stocks Change for the same period added 1.367 million barrels to the week-on-week count, below the 2.116 million forecast and easing back from the previous week’s nearly 4.2 million barrel surplus. Easing barrel counts have bolstered hopes that US refining will begin to eat away at Crude Oil supplies filling the pipeline, but only enough to keep WTI in the green by about a percent after peaking at 3.25% bottom-to-top for the day on Wednesday.