Crude Oil Forecast Dec. 13, 2011, Fundamental Analysis

Crude oil prices fell on Monday, where the U.S. dollar strengthened, as pessimism started to spread through markets after Friday’s EU summit. While Moody’s also added to the jitters by saying the EU will be under review after the summit failed to produce decisive measures to end the crisis. Nonetheless, investors are starting to doubt the ability of EU leaders to come up with a resolution to the debt crisis. Accordingly, investors targeted lower yielding assets including the U.S. dollar, which put weighed down on crude oil prices.

Traders will continue to monitor the developments from the 17-bloc euro nation and the European leader’ latest moves to contain the debt crisis, where we expect volatility to persist through the sessions this week.

Crude oil prices could drop further on Tuesday, as the outlook for crude oil prices is still bearish, where expectations of slowing global growth, in addition to uncertainty that continue to surround the outlook the European debt crisis and its impact on growth in Europe are likely to chain crude oil prices over the coming period.

Tuesday December 13:

The United States will join the session at 13:30 GMT with the retail sales index for November, where the advance retail sales index could have expanded by 0.6% from 0.5%, while the retail sales less Autos index could have advanced by 0.5% from 0.6%.

At 15:00 GMT the United States will provide the business inventories index for October, which could have improved 0.4% from the previous steady reading.

At 19:15 GMT the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will announce the rate decision (DEC 13), with expectations the Federal Bank could have left rates unchanged at 0.25%.