Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 8/13/21

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.736181; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.138337; American Dollar to Euro = 1.081500; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.006602; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.059445.

Crude in New York fell 0.4 percent as traders cashed in after yesterday’s 3.1 percent surge. The oil market is nearing the end of the “lower for longer” era with a shortage likely in 2019, trading house Trafigura said Tuesday. Turkey can “close the valves” on oil shipments from Kurdistan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the Iraqi region held a vote on independence. Oil has gained more than 10 percent this month on forecasts for rising crude demand and as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintain production cuts to drain a global glut. The market rebalancing has helped flip the futures curve into backwardation, a structure where immediate deliveries of oil are more expensive than longer-dated ones, signaling strong demand. Brent prices jumped to a two-year high on Monday before retreating Tuesday. “It’s pure profit taking,” Torbjorn Kjus, oil market analyst at DNB Bank ASA said by phone. “It’s very natural. The most natural thing would be if we lose some more during the day, but so far it’s holding up almost unexpectedly well after that very large rally yesterday.” Click Read More below for more of the story.

The global oil benchmark flirted with the $80-a-barrel level again on Tuesday, underlining concerns that an unexpectedly strong crude rally could eventually begin to weigh on economic growth. The combination of renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran, potential sanctions on Venezuela, a rising geopolitical risk premium, strong demand and other factors have made talk of $100 crude sound less outlandish. Indeed, some analysts argue that the backdrop now leaves the market more open to potential price spikes. So what if oil did climb back to triple digits for the first time since 2014? Economists led by Arend Kapteyn at UBS laid it out in a wide-ranging note on Tuesday. Click Read More below for additional information.