Commodities & Cryptos: Oil’s Bad Week, Gold Hits Wall, Bitcoin Rises – Investing.com

Commodities & Cryptos: Oil’s Bad Week, Gold Hits Wall, Bitcoin Rises – Investing.com

Crude prices are slightly higher after a brutal week saw COVID-19 concerns across Asia and Europe dampen the short-term crude demand outlook, while OPEC+ seems poised to deliver more output. A big driver for oil prices will be Iranian output and that question won’t get answered until well after Iranian hardliner Ebrahim Raisi will be inaugurated president in early August.

Last month, everything on the supply and demand side was bullish for crude prices. This month, reopening momentum all around the world took a major step backwards. What is most concerning to the outlook is that even highly vaccinated countries are struggling with the Delta variant. The UK is going ahead with Freedom Day despite a rise in cases, while the U.S. has seen a doubling of cases in the last two weeks. While the U.S. and U.K. won’t have major reversals with the easing of curbs, it shows how much harder the fight will be for the rest of the world. Singapore is imposing more curbs and Thailand posted a record number of cases. Africa suffered its worst pandemic week ever as it struggles to get its hands on vaccines.