Oil dips below US$50 a barrel on deepening worries world economy is tanking
NEW YORK — The headline price of crude oil has dipped below US$50 a barrel as anxiety intensifies about the global economy.
Crude briefly went as low as US$49.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, trading later in the morning at US$50.40, down $3.22 on the day.
The front-month Nymex contract has not been below $50 since May 2005, according to CNBC's MarketWatch.
Traders - spooked by plummeting stock prices, tight credit markets and a continual drip of depressing economic data - are pricing in lower energy demand in the face of what is widely expected to be the deepest global downturn in decades.
"People are saying this slowdown could be the worst since the Great Depression," said Toby Hassall, an analyst with Commodity Warrants Australia in Sydney.
"There's definitely fear out there that it's going to be pretty severe."
Stocks slid sharply Thursday in Asia and Europe, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei index falling 6.9 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index off four per cent. London's FTSE index was down 2.6 per cent in afternoon trading, and Wall Street was downbeat after steep losses Wednesday.
