The Oct’24 Brent futures contract witnessed a morning of two halves. We initially saw the benchmark crude futures contract firm up to $80.40/bbl at 09:00 BST but saw these gains fade amid a sell-off to $79.75/bbl as of 11:20 BST (time of writing). China’s Caixin Manufacturing PMI for July came out at 49.8 (expected: 51.5, prior: 51.8), signalling its first contraction in 9 months. In the UK, the monthly Citi/YouGov survey stated that the British public’s expectations for inflation over the next year were stable at 2.7% in July (June: 2.6%). This announcement comes alongside the Bank of England cutting interest rates from a 16-year high of 5.25% to 5% on Thursday. South Korea’s CPI rose 2.6% y/y in July after hitting an 11-month low of 2.4% in June. In other news, Alex Beard, former head of oil at Glencore Plc., was charged with corruption by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which accused Beard of making payments to government officials and employees of NOCs in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2010. Finally, at the time of writing, the Oct/Nov and Oct/Apr’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.55/bbl and $2.30/bbl, respectively.
