The dollar rebounded from a three-year low and WTI crude slid more than 1% on Monday amid breaking news that a U.S.-led operation killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The Saudi-born Al-Qaeda leader was reportedly shot in the head at a luxury mansion complex in Abbotabad.
Markets rallied in Asia and are expected to continue to do so when Europe opens later today. Oil’s slip may be temporary with few market fundamentals having changed on the news. Oil traders have been notoriously quick to be spooked on bad news, and equally emotional on news which seems to improve supply fundamentals. Â
Fears that a commodities slide was in progress were exacerbated when silver, which typically tracks gold, slipped 13%.
Bloomberg is reporting that oil for June delivery fell as much as 1.5% to $112.21 a barrel before trading at $112.73 in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The news suggests the American military burden may ease in its Eastern theatres, reducing the deployment of the unmanned attack drone Predator over Pakistan and allowing for a meaningful exit stragtegy for Afghanistan could begin.Â
Addressing the world, President Obama said that shortly after taking office, he directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of the war against al Qaeda, even as the USA continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
“Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” said the President.
“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”
Â
Â
