Oil rises on OPEC rumors


After some sharp drops in oil this week, the precious crude is trading up a bit today to close out the week, as investors are betting that OPEC is going to step in and announce some production cuts aimed at curbing the sell off the market has been seeing recently.

As we already know, oil traders have been sending prices lower as global recession fears have stoked concerns that a broad economic slowdown is going to lead to a drop in global demand. While that is debatable, it is still reason enough for concern, and has kept prices in a virtual free fall the past couple months.

Before oil's most recent declines, OPEC was supposed to next meet in December, but then decided to move up their meeting to November to discuss the current output levels. Today they announced that they were going to move that date up even a bit more, and will gather next week instead, and traders are expecting to hear the group announce reductions in its output.

Most analysts are expecting for OPEC to announce a 1 million barrel a day production cut. Will this be enough to help oil rebound from its recent drop? We will just have to wait and see about that one.

Let's close with a current chart of oil so you can get a better idea on just how sharply it has fallen since its all time high this summer:

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

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