Major Events/Reports:Oil takes a fall

Oil benchmarks were bleeding out during the morning London session, with U.S. crude oil down by 1.40% to $44.35 per barrel and Brent crude oil down by 1.47% to $44.52 per barrel by the end of the session. The slide in oil prices was apparently due to profit-taking

U.S. equity futures were also losing out, with the S&P 500 futures down by 0.24% to 2,039.00 and the Nasdaq futures down by 0.26% to 4,289.12 during the morning London session while the safe-haven gold was up by 0.77% to $1,282.15 per troy ounce.