The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced today that US crude inventories rose by 5.4 million barrels to a total of 472 million barrels last week, while analysts forecast a 3 million barrel decline.

US gasoline inventories fell by 1.1 million barrels to 225 million barrels, while distillate stocks rose by 100,000 barrels to 125.6 million barrels.

While the American Petroleum Institute (API) announced yesterday in preliminary data that the US oil inventories rose by about 8.6 million barrels.

US stocks stabilized today, erasing earlier losses posted at the beginning of the session as the US-China trade war concerns still presist in addition to the release of weak economic data.

Government data showed US retail sales fell by 0.2%, while analysts expected a 0.2% rise.

US President Donald Trump said today that his administration does not attach much importance to the trade dispute with China, while noting that there are still opportunities for a trade deal.

This comes after China announced its plans to increase tariffs on imports of US goods worth $60 billion to 25% from 10% by June. in response to the decision of the United States to increase tariffs on imports of Chinese goods worth $200 billion.

Sources pointed out that the US administration is preparing a list of Chinese goods worth an additional $300 billion to be targeted with tariffs.

In terms of trade, Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by less than 0.1% (15 points) to 25,542 points. Nasdaq rose 0.7% (54 points) to 7,788 points, while Standard & Poor's rose by 0.3% (8 points) to 2,842 points.

Ethereum rose by more than 9% on spot trading today, to continue its strong gains for the third consecutive day, recording the highest level in eight months, after breaching the psychological barrier of $200, with investment demands accelerating due to the bullish market run, which currently controls The world's second-largest cryptocurrency trading.

On Bitstamp Stock Exchange, by 10:40 GMT, Ethereum is trading around $237.10, up by $19.62, or 9.1%, from the opening of $217.48, with the highest since September 30 at $237.40, 2018, and the lowest at $217.29.

Ethereum gained 10.75% yesterday, its second consecutive daily gain, as strong investment demand continues for the world's second largest cryptocurrency.

Ethereum gained 16.5% over the course of the current week, its second consecutive weekly gain, and its biggest weekly gain since the first week of April, due to the positive atmosphere that currently dominates the crypto market.

The market value of cryptocurrencies rose more than $13 billion to $247 billion on Wednesday, the highest level since August 2018, with the rising of most of the major cryptocurrencies in the market led by the Ethereum.

Ethereum market share of crypto trading rose over the last 72 hours from 9% to 9.97%, the highest level since April 23, as investment demand accelerated amid the bullish market run the dominates the world's second largest cryptocurrency.

The high investment demand for Ethereum comes as the South Korean technology giant, Samsung, allowed payments using Ethereum.

Samsung has received a lot of interest from the crypto supporters over the past few months, especially after its launch of a cryptocurrency portfolio on the Galaxy S10 smartphone.

The wallet allows the storing of cryptocurrencies with public and private keys. Although the pre-release images of the wallet showed Bitcoin logo, but the portfolio currently supports Ethereum codes only, while it's expected for it to support Bitcoin at some point in the future.

Crude oil fell as the US market opened on Wednesday, to head to its second loss in the last three days, after preliminary data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), showed that the US commercial inventories rose to their highest level since 2017. Traders are looking for official stock data and production levels within the Weekly report of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

By 12:10 GMT, US crude fell to $61.05 per barrel from the opening level of $61.33, with a high of $61.58 and a low of $60.83.

US crude gained 0.8% yesterday, to recover part of its losses in the day before.

Yesterday's rise drew support from the Saudi announcement of two drone planes attacking oil pumping stations in the country, two days after Saudi oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.

In preliminary data, the American Petroleum Institute announced yesterday that the country's commercial inventories rose by 8.6 million barrels in the week ending May 10, the fourth weekly increase in a row, contrary to experts' forecasts of a decline by about 0.8 million barrels.

According to the data, total US commercial inventories rose to around 477 million barrels, the highest level of US stocks since October 2017, in a negative sign about demand levels in the world's largest oil consumer.

Traders are looking for official data about the US inventories and production levels later today, in the weekly report of the EIA, with expectations for inventories to rise by about 3 million barrels.

As for production, it fell by about 100 thousand barrels during the previous week, bringing the total to 12.2 million barrels per day, leaving its record level at 12.3 million barrels per day, as the United States is currently the largest oil producer in the world.