© Reuters.

Investing.com — Gold prices ended the week little changed, rebounding from a one-week low, as markets continued their debate on whether the Federal Reserve’s final rate hike for the year would be in November or December.

“Weakening global growth prospects are (also) starting to attract some safe-haven flows towards bullion,” Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, said. “Gold has shown that the $1,900 level was a major line in the sand and now it appears to be poised to consolidate around the $1,950 level.”

Gold’s most-active futures contract on New York’s Comex, , settled up $6, or 0.3%, at $1945.60 an ounce. For the week, it closed virtually flat, down 0.03%.

The was at $1,925.01 by 15:10 ET (19:10 GMT). Spot gold, determined by real-time trades in physical bullion and more closely followed than futures by some traders, was up $4.90, or 0.3%, on the day. For the week, it rose 0.1%.

“For gold to move back above the $2,000 level, investors will need to see major dollar weakness, which will be driven by evidence that the labor market is breaking,” Moya said.

Markets debating when next Fed hike will be

The hit six-month highs on Friday, limiting buying of dollar-denominated commodities by holders of other currencies. Offsetting some of the dollar’s charge was a decline in U.S. bonds, measured by the , which hit its highest since 2007 before retreating.
Both yields and the dollar shot up this week after the Fed projected another quarter-percentage point by the year-end, despite leaving rates unchanged for September itself at a policy meeting on Wednesday.

“We are prepared to raise rates further, if appropriate,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told a news conference on Wednesday. “The fact that we decided to maintain the policy rate at this meeting doesn’t mean we have decided that we have or have not at this time reached that stance of monetary policy that we are seeking.”

The Fed had raised interest rates 11 times between February 2022 and July 2023, adding a total of 5.25 percentage points to a prior base rate of just 0.25%. The central bank has forecast that U.S. rates will trend around 5.1% through 2024.

The Fed has two more policy meetings left for this year — in November and December. Markets are trying to guess which month the central bank would pick for what would be its last hike for 2023.

(Ambar Warrick l

© Reuters.

Investing.com — Crude prices had first weekly loss in four after the Federal Reserve signaled it might raise interest rates again before the end of the year — and anytime inflation gets out of hand. 

The downside in oil prices was, however, limited by Russia’s export ban on fuels, which counteracted fears that slowing economies and high interest rates could crimp demand for energy.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or , crude for delivery in November settled at $90.03 per barrel, 40 cents, or 0.5%, on the day. WTI earlier hit an intraday high of $91.31, after Tuesday’s 10-month high of $93.74. For the week, the U.S. crude benchmark was down 0.6%, after a cumulative gain of almost 14% over three weeks.

London-traded settled at $93.27 a barrel up, down 3 cents, or 0.03%. Brent rose to as high as $94.64 earlier on the day, after Tuesday’s 10-month high of $95.96. The global oil benchmark was down 0.7% on the week, after a cumulative gain of nearly 11% over three weeks.

The dollar strengthened after the Fed projected another quarter-percentage point by the year-end, despite leaving rates unchanged for September itself at a policy meeting on Wednesday.

“We are prepared to raise rates further, if appropriate,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told a news conference. “The fact that we decided to maintain the policy rate at this meeting doesn’t mean we have decided that we have or have not at this time reached that stance of monetary policy that we are seeking.”

Energy-driven inflation one of the Fed’s concerns

Powell said energy-driven inflation, led by the 30% rally in oil prices since June, was one of the Fed’s bigger concerns.

The Fed had raised interest rates 11 times between February 2022 and July 2023, adding a total of 5.25 percentage points to a prior base rate of just 0.25%. 

Economists fear that the Fed’s renewed hawkish stance will dampen global growth though many also agree that a lid has to be put on oil prices if the Fed is to achieve its annual inflation target of 2%.

Russia said on Friday it has implemented an immediate ‘temporary’ suspension of gasoline and diesel exports to all countries except for four former Soviet states and its own overseas military bases, with the goal of stabilizing its domestic market.

Kremlin fuel export ban will further tighten oil market

Russia’s Transneft then suspended deliveries of diesel to the key Baltic and Black Sea (NYSE:) terminals of Primorsk and Novorossiysk on Friday, state media agency Tass said.

The Kremlin said the ban was “temporary” and designed to address rising energy prices in Russia. Russian wholesale gasoline prices were down nearly 10% and diesel down 7.5% on Friday after the ban. 

The ban will “bring new uncertainty into an already tight global refined product supply picture and the prospect that the impacted countries will be seeking to bid up cargoes from alternative suppliers,” RBC said in a note.

Diesel is the workhorse fuel of the global economy, playing a crucial role in freight, shipping and aviation. Derivatives of diesel such as are particularly susceptible to winter price surges. Germany and the north-east of the U.S. are both heavily reliant on the fuel for heating homes.

Russia is the world’s second-largest seaborne exporter of diesel after the U.S., according to Kpler, a freight data analytics company, and before its invasion of Ukraine was the single biggest diesel exporter to the EU. The EU and U.S. have largely banned imports of Russian refined fuel since February, forcing Moscow to reroute its sales to Turkey and countries in North Africa and Latin America.

Russian refined fuel sales, particularly diesel, remain a critical part of oil supplies. In August Russia exported more than 30mn barrels of diesel and gas-oil — a diesel proxy — by sea, according to oil cargo tracker Kpler.

(Peter Nurse and Ambar Warrick contributed to this item)

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Crude oil storage tanks are seen from above at the Cushing oil hub, appearing to run out of space to contain a historic supply glut that has hammered prices, in Cushing, Oklahoma, March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Nick Oxford//File Photo

By Arathy Somasekhar and Nicole Jao

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Oil prices held steady on Friday but closed the week lower on profit-taking and as markets weighed supply concerns stemming from Russia’s fuel export ban against demand woes from future rate hikes.

futures settled 3 cents lower at $93.27 a barrel. It fell 0.3% in the week, breaking a three week streak of gains.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures rose 40 cents, or 0.5%, to $90.03 a barrel, as U.S. oil rig counts fell. The benchmark fell 0.03% for the week, the first decline in four weeks.

“Investors are anticipating a slack in demand coming into October as refineries go into maintenance and as a higher interest rate is going to further pressure markets,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial, adding that there was also some profit taking.

The contracts have rallied more than 10% in the previous three weeks on concerns about tight supply.

U.S. Federal Reserve officials warned of further rate hikes, even after voting to hold the benchmark federal funds rate steady at a meeting this week.

“Inflation is still too high, and I expect it will likely be appropriate for the (Federal Open Market) Committee to raise rates further and hold them at a restrictive level for some time,” Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said.

A potential further rise in energy prices, she noted, was a particular risk she was monitoring.

Higher interest rates increase borrowing costs, which could slow economic growth and reduce oil demand.

Meanwhile, Russia’s temporary ban on exports of gasoline and diesel to most countries was expected to tighten supplies.

Russia’s Transneft suspended deliveries of diesel to the key Baltic and Black Sea (NYSE:) terminals of Primorsk and Novorossiysk on Friday, state media agency Tass said.

The ban will “bring new uncertainty into an already tight global refined product supply picture and the prospect that the impacted countries will be seeking to bid up cargoes from alternative suppliers,” RBC said in a note.

Russian wholesale gasoline prices were down nearly 10% and diesel down 7.5% on Friday on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange.

U.S. oil rig counts, an indicator of future production, also fell by eight to 507 this week, their lowest since February 2022, energy services firm Baker Hughes said.

Refineries in the United States routinely do maintenance in autumn after heavy runs to meet fuel demand from the summer driving season. Offline refinery capacity was expected to reach 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) this week according to IIR Energy versus 800,000 bpd offline last week.

Money managers raised their net long futures and options positions in the week to Sept. 19, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said.