Oil plunged about 7% yesterday to an eight-month low, going deeper into bear territory as “traders scrambled to adjust options positions amid fears global economic turbulence would cut into demand,” the Financial Times reports. Brent was down 6.6%, while West Texas Intermediate in the US was down 7.1%.

Why is oil plunging? It is almost a perfect storm more than it is any one factor.CNBC, the WSJ and Reuters suggest it has a lot to do with:

• Fast-rising production in the United States;
• Fears that demand could fall thanks to slower economic growth on the back of trade tensions (OPEC and the International Energy Agency both see less consumption growth than before, at a minimum);
• Last month’s stock-market sell-off (“one week after crude futures struck their highs, two-thirds of the stocks in the S&P 500 plunged into correction territory,” dragging crude futures with them);
• A stronger USD, which makes oil more expensive for countries whose currencies don’t move in tandem with the greenback;
• The sanctions waivers from the US that allow eight nations to continue importing Iranian crude.

Look for things to get more tense between Washington and Riyadh: “OPEC and Saudi Arabia [are] on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump, who publicly supports low oil prices and who has called on OPEC not to cut production.”

Speaking of DC and KSA: America has finally appointed an ambassador to the kingdom, naming retired general John Abizaid to a post vacant since January 2017. Abizaid oversaw the US Central Command during the early years of America’s war in Iraq.

Can we now have an ambassador here in Cairo, too, Mr. Trump?

The UK is closing in on a Brexit agreement with the European Union, the WSJ and FT suggest. British PM Theresa May could put the proposed pact could go before her “deeply divided cabinet” as early as today.

Goldman Sachs is in the spotlight this morning as it faces questioning by the US Justice Department over its role in the scandal surrounding 1MDB, the state-owned Malaysian investment fund. “After one of its senior bankers pleaded guilty to charges that he helped orchestrate a vast fraud at Malaysia’s state investment fund, 1MDB, investors have started to fret about what sanctions the bank might face. Shares in the group fell more than 7 per cent on Monday and they are now down more than a quarter since March,” the FT writes in its t-up for a piece on Key questions for Goldman Sachs about Malaysian scandal. Follow that up with the editorial board’s take: Goldman must stiffen its response to bad conduct.