Oil Prices Drop On Stronger Dollar, COVID Resurgence

Oil prices dropped early on Monday as a stronger U.S. dollar and many countries still battling rising daily COVID-19 cases weighed on market sentiment at the start of the week. As of 9:14 a.m. ET on Monday, WTI Crude prices were down by 0.15 percent at $52.30 and Brent Crude was trading down 0.29 percent at $54.97, with prices down by around $2 a barrel from the middle of last week. The lockdowns in Europe and the fairly slow start to vaccination programs in many countries outweighed early on Monday good economic data out of China, which beat analyst…