The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Wednesday that crude inventories rose by 2.346 million barrels in the week ended October 1, following a build of 4.578 million barrels in the previous week. Economists had forecast a decrease of 0.418 million barrels.

At the same time, gasoline stocks climbed by 3.256 million barrels, while analysts had expected a fall of 0.279 million barrels. Distillate stocks dropped 0.396 million barrels, while analysts had forecast a decline of 1.007 million barrels.

Meanwhile, oil production in the U.S. increased 200,000 barrels a day to 11.300 million barrels a day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.0 million barrels per day last week, up by 483,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

• Iraq seeks to expand its production and export capacity in the coming years
• Aims to raise its oil production capacity by some 3 mln barrels per day (bpd) to 8 million bpd by the end of 2027
• Targets raising its crude export capacity to 6 mln bpd from 4 mln bpd now by the end of 2024

FXStreet reports that economists at Commerzbank suggest that the gold/silver ratio has now topped due to the triple divergence of the RSI. 

“Gold/silver ratio has again rallied higher towards the band of resistance offered by 80.20 the 29th October high and 81.26 the 23rd September high. The new high has been accompanied by triple divergence of the daily RSI and this most depicts the end of the move. This overhead resistance is reinforced by the 200-week ma at 82.14, and we suspect that the market will now fail. 

“Dips lower will find the short term uptrend at 76.50, but we suspect that the 55-day ma at 75.16 may provide stronger support and the ratio will have to drop below here to confirm a slide back to key support is centered around 70.00 and the six-month uptrend at 69.43.”

FXStreet reports that Karen Jones, Team Head FICC Technical Analysis Research at Commerzbank, thinks that gold’s tepid bounce has not been enough to alleviate the bearish bias. 

“Gold’s outlook stays negative. It held the initial test of the 78.6% retracement at $1722. The bounce has fallen short of the 55-day ma at $1784 and immediate downside risk remains. Below $1721, support is found at $1679.80/$1677.83, and is reinforced by the $1670 June 2020 low.”

“We have extensive resistance from $1784 to $1834 (55, 200-day moving averages and highs since July) and we look for rallies to struggle on moves into this band. The 55-week ma is also found at $1819.” 

“A close above $1834 is needed to retest the $1856/57 4 the June low and the $1860 2020-2021 downtrend."