By Mahmoud Gamal

Mubasher: Oil prices closed Monday as much as 2% lower after an inventory spike at a key storage base for US crude.

Brent declined 2.5%, or $1.09, to $42.64 per barrel. Likewise, U.S crude was down 1.4%, or 63 cents, to $44.48 a barrel.

Ahmed Karam, an oil industry expert, sees this decline as a natural result of profit-taking following a span of positive speculations by which oil prices have hit two-month high, along with expectations that U.S oil inventory will likely jump to 2.3 million barrel.

As cited from Reuters, “some analysts caution that production of oil products, especially in Asia, remains rampant and several major gasoline importing countries have started to export. Analysts at Morgan Stanley said oil was rallying on buying by macro funds, index/exchange-traded funds flows and investors fearful of missing out even as fundamentals remained bearish and could deteriorate if prices moved higher.”

On Tuesday, gold prices opened the day 0.22% lower to 1,237.45 points per ounce.

Gold prices are expected to hike near $1,300 – 1,330 in the coming period, if interest rate is kept unchanged at tomorrow's Fed meeting, said Rajab Hamed, international market analyst.