Today’s energy and equity market action:
- A surprise build in US crude stockpiles sent WTI 1% lower on Wednesday, giving back some of yesterday’s gains. Brent ended the day roughly unchanged.
- WCS declined 1.3%, while Canadian Light posted a 0.4% drop, helped by a slight narrowing of its discount to WTI.
- Most other energy commodities didn’t fare much better on Wednesday. Heating oil declined 0.5% while gasoline lost almost 2%. Henry Hub fell 1.2%, returning to the lows of mid-February.
- Global equity markets were all over the map on Wednesday. Overnight, Chinese markets all ticked higher, while European markets were flat for the day.
- In New York, the NYSE dipped 0.4%, while the S&P 500 Large Cap index declined 0.5%. Except for industrials, all other sectors posted losses for the day. The US energy sector declined 0.7%.
- In Toronto, the TSX slid 0.1%, dragged lower by a 1.7% decline in energy stocks.
- Except for a handful of stocks, most energy components ended the day lower on both sides of the border.
