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Oil (CL=F, BZ=F) prices fell 6% on concerns about Trump's new tariffs weighing on demand and news that 8 OPEC+ members plan on boosting their output. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Ines Ferré reports the details.
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Oil slumping this morning as President Trump's new tariffs are expected to hit demand and OPEC Plus agreeing to increase output in May. Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre joins us now with a closer look. Hey, Ines.
Hey, Madison. Yeah, and oil is reeling right now, down more than 7%. It was down more than 7% right now, 6.5% when we're talking about WTI futures. Brent crude is also down more than 6%, and this is because of two things. First off, those tariffs that were announced yesterday, you saw oil going down more than 4% on that news, but then we really saw the accelerating losses after OPEC Plus said that its members have agreed to increase output in May, and increase output by more than expected because they're going to be increasing barrels output to 411,000 more barrels a day into the market. That's what they're going to be introducing throughout the month of May, and that has really spooked the markets as well. So if there was a cold bucket of water to throw more onto the oil market, that was it. Oil was already on the decline because of those tariffs, because analysts had been saying, look, if you're going to have very severe tariffs, then you are going to see oil going down in price because of demand concerns. And Rebecca Babin, the analyst that I spoke to last night, she was saying to me yesterday, look, 54% tariffs on China, that is a significant negative surprise. The tariffs on growing emerging economies that contribute the most to the crude growth in the world, that is significant. And so you are seeing now that demand is taking center stage when it comes to these markets, guys.
You're also watching gold. It's pulling back after hitting that all-time high?
Yeah, look, if we're looking at across the commodity space, we are seeing that gold is also pulling back. It had reached an all-time high last night, but you are now seeing it pull back 1.5%. Out of the commodities, it is doing the best really, because you're also seeing silver down, copper down, all of this because of demand concerns. But gold is isn't holding up to its all-time high from yesterday, but still outperforming when it comes to the other commodities. An analyst had said, if you see stocks coming down, if you see a whole market sell-off, it's likely that you are also going to be seeing some profit taking in gold and also some margin calls, so traders selling anything they can.
Ines, thanks very much.
Thank you.