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| - Brent oil struck a two-decade low Wednesday before rebounding sharply, while stock markets pushed higher. The European benchmark, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in June, fell to $15.98 per barrel -- the lowest level since June 1999, before bouncing higher to burst back above $20. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate's new June contract, after having dropped more than 10 percent to as low as $10.26, shot up by over a third to $15.74 at 1350 GMT. "Oil volatility is still front and centre for the trading community," said Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at IG trading group, With crude demand virtually non-existent owing to virus lockdowns, and production still high despite storage at the bursting point, crude markets had been sent into freefall with the May contract of US benchmark WTI diving to minus $40 on Monday. The crisis in the oil market caused by the coronavirus was compounded by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. While the pair drew a line under the row and led producers into slashing output by 10 million barrels a day, that has not been enough to prevent historic price falls. Crude's rout which saw producers pay clients to take it off their hands "merely reflects the underlying theme that there is no demand for physical oil, and there is nowhere to store it", concluded AxiCorp's Stephen Innes. Analysts said Wednesday's better performance was driven by news that members of OPEC, as well as some allies in the OPEC+ grouping, held a teleconference Tuesday. Briefing.com analyst Patrick J. O'Hare noted the fact that futures contracts for July WTI oil are above $20 has also reassured many investors. "The positive price bias along the oil futures curve implies that there is some renewed hope this morning that a reopening of the economy in coming months will mitigate the pressing storage issue today as demand picks up at a time when supply is going to be reduced," he said in a note to clients. O'Hare said that hope was spilling over into equity markets. While gains across Asia were modest Wednesday, European markets pushed higher as the opening bell approached in New York, where the Dow opened up 1.8 percent. Shares in Netflix, which reported after soaring profits after trading closed on Tuesday, saw its shares slide more than 3 percent to around $421 as trading got under way. Subscriptions surged by almost 16 million at the streaming television service thanks to lockdowns worldwide. "After record subscriber additions, Netflix is and will continue to be the media company least impacted by COVID-19," said eMarketer forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom. "Their business is a near perfect fit to a population that is suddenly housebound." Shares in Netflix have jumped from around $360 at the beginning of the month. West Texas Intermediate: UP 19.3 percent at $13.80 per barrel Brent North Sea crude: UP 7.9 percent at $20.86 London - FTSE 100: UP 2.3 percent at 5,767.71 points Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 1.3 percent at 10,383.27 Paris - CAC 40: UP 1.1 percent at 4,405,22 New York - Dow: UP 1.8 percent at 23,440.32 Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.7 percent at 19,137.95 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 0.4 percent at 23,893.36 (close) Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 2,843.98 (close) Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0867 from $1.0859 at 2030 GMT Dollar/yen: UP at 107.83 from 107.77 yen Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2346 from $1.2301 Euro/pound: DOWN at 88.03 pence from 88.27 pence burs-rl/cdw
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