Opec cuts providing some support for oil prices

With the US jobless total rising, car sales slumping and stock markets at 12-year lows, the flow of bad economic and financial news continues unabated. Yet oil prices have held above $40/b. The Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) says the oil market "appears to have developed a resistance to the bad news continuing to emerge from the banking sector and the dire state of the global economy".