European update – Oil, UK slump, gold, bitcoin

Energy Leads the Way

Stock markets are making decent gains across Europe and Wall Street is preparing for a healthy open as well, with futures up around 1% as the bell nears.

The rebound started late in the US session on Monday and was led by energy stocks as crude prices continue to rebound strongly. Production cuts combined with reopening measures across the US and Europe seem to be behind the rally in oil prices, although we’re still at extremely low levels and capacity is still fast running out.

Oil prices have hardly recovered though, with WTI still trading in the low $20 range, a level deemed disastrous not too long ago. It’s easy to get too carried away with high single percentage gains when prices have fallen as far as they have. The real test will come in two weeks when the June contract expires.

The API inventory data later today will be interesting, after reporting more than 58 million barrels of increases in the last five weeks. The EIA…