MarketsRouble gains, Dubai stocks up 2% as oil gains
A small rebound in oil prices offered some relief to the Russian rouble and Dubai's stock market - two of the hardest hit assets from the recent slide in crude.
The price of Brent crude was volatile in the Asian session. It opened the week by falling 1.6 per cent to $60.28 per barrel - a new five-and-a-half-year low - but it then swung more than 3 per cent in the other direction. At pixel time it was up 1.3 per cent from Friday, at $62.66.
The Russian rouble gained half a per cent in early trading to 57.9938, after falling 10.2 per cent last to week to yet another record low.
The Dubai stock market, which tumbled for nine straight sessions including falls in excess of 7 per cent in each of the past two sessions, opened 2 per cent higher.
Dubai is an insignificant oil exporter but the slide in crude prices will rein in spending across the region and impact its commercial and financial activities. The stock market, once up nearly 60 per cent this year, had wiped out all the year's gains before today's slight rebound.
Oil prices have been tumbling sharply in the last two weeks since Opec, the oil cartel, failed to reduce supply. Last week it then forecast lower demand.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley issued a note today saying Opec has abandoned its oil market management duties.
This 'feels like one of those seminal points in the history of oil and the markets,' they said.
While global economic activity is less 'oil intensive' than it was during the last period of elevated oil prices in the 1970s, a correction of this magnitude if sustained will nonetheless have a substantial and long-lasting impact on both the global economy and on many relative prices across the investment universe. This is a major structural shift.
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