Oil Prices Under Pressure With Latest Figures on U.S. Stockpiles
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: The latest figures on U.S. crude oil stockpiles are putting pressure on oil prices. They fell in Asia after the American Petroleum Institute reported U.S. stockpiles rose by more than 4 million barrels. That's more than twice as much as had been expected. Brokers say imports have jumped since OPEC's decision to raise global output.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: And for a check now on the current price of oil on this Wednesday morning, we check in with Todd Benjamin in London.</s>MARCHINI: He also has a look at the European market winners and losers -- Todd.</s>TODD BENJAMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave and Deb. Oil is down this morning, not by a great deal. It's down 8 cents at $23.25 a barrel on the heals of those survey numbers from the U.S. in terms of crude stocks. In terms of the overall markets, they're up following that big rally we saw on Wall Street overnight. Right now, the FTSE is up about 1/2 percent. The Dax is actually having a very good day. It's up about 1 1/3 percent. Paris having an even better day, but TMT, techs, media and telecom, playing a greater role there. It's up 1.7 percent. And Zurich is up just over 1/2 of one percent. In terms of some stocks on the move that trade in New York, Cable and Wireless is up 3 percent, Nokia is up nearly 4 percent, you've got ST Microelectronics up 3 percent, France Telecom up 3.3 percent. All these, of course, trade in New York. SAP up 6 percent and Deutsche Telekom up 3 percent. And on the red side of the ledger, you've got Unilever is down nearly 2 percent, and Shell Transport is down just over 1 1/2 percent. Back to you.</s>MARCHINI: Todd, before we let you go, the euro's really on the ropes today.</s>BENJAMIN: Well, you know, it a low yesterday of 91.60. It's hovering right now, as we speak, around 92. It's still under a lot of pressure. The latest blow came from a member of the Bundes Bank who said, basically, even though the euro's weak, that the European Central Bank shouldn't raise interest rates this week. Now, the euro has been weakening on fears that policy makers don't exactly have it right, concerns about a change of government in Italy, some off-handed remarks in Austria. All sorts of reasons have been given, including that Europe, even though growth is picking up, is not making necessarily structural reform in terms of, you know, cutting back on pensions and so fourth. So it's still under a lot of pressure. But one person I spoke with this morning, he says the main reason he thinks the euro is still under so much pressure is because growth in the U.S. is so strong. Of course, we're going to get new numbers out on Monday for the first quarter and they're expected to show a rise of about 6 percent at an annual rate. Compare that to Europe at 3 1/2 percent and there's some credence in what this person's saying. I think, also, the euro's confidence was undermined when we had that sharp downdraft from the Nasdaq, when it fell some 25 percent in on week and the euro didn't rally then. I think a lot of people at that point said, hey, if it can't rally on that, it can't rally, and they threw in the towel. Back to you.</s>MARCHINI: Strong U.S. economy likely to be evidenced in two places tomorrow: GDP report and also the Employment Cost Index, which might show some inflation in wages. All right, thank you, Todd. We'll see you in a little bit.