A perfect storm of macroeconomic factors has dragged oil prices lower, but China’s stock market slide kicked off this week’s 10 percent plunge in crude futures, said Tamar Essner, energy analyst at Nasdaq OMX.
Traders had largely digested progress toward a deal on Iran’s nuclear program and Greece’s debt standoff, but a nearly 30 percent correction in Chinese stocks caught them unaware, she said Tuesday.
“I don’t think the market really anticipated that things were quite as bad as they were in China,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “That had been a big tool in the arsenal of the oil bulls out there, who had said oil demand had been understated and could really surprise to the upside driven by China. That’s now thrown into question.”
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