MTECHTIPS;-Oil falls due to caution over first phase of U.S.-China trade deal

MTECHTIPS-Oil prices fell on Monday as scant details about the first phase of a trade deal between the United States and China undercut optimism over a U.S.-Sino thaw that had helped lift crude markets by 2% at the end of last week. Brent crude LCOc1 fell 46 cents to $60.05 a barrel by 0840 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 lost 40 cents at $54.30 a barrel. Both were down 0.7%. Late on Friday, the United States and China outlined the first stage of a trade deal and suspended this week’s scheduled U.S. tariff hikes. But existing tariffs remain in place and officials on both sides said much more work was needed before an accord could be agreed. oil market is taking a cautious stance as to what comes next given that the thorny issues of industrial policy, intellectual property rights, technology transfer among others were not addressed,” BNP Paribas (PA:BNPP) oil strategist Harry Linguistically said. Brent and WTI rose more than 3% last week, their first weekly increase in three. A good portion of their gains came after the United States announced on Friday it was deploying more troops to Saudi Arabia, and after an Iranian oil tanker was attacked in the Red Sea. the market waits for potential responses from the Iranians, the continued inability of geopolitics to sustain price gains is a testament to the state of concerns over demand,” JBC analysts said in a note