Oil prices briefly regained the $50 a barrel level on Monday, ahead of this week’s Opec meeting, while gold recovered the $840 mark as the dollar weakened in anticipation of a US rate cut at today’s Federal Reserve meeting.

Nymex January West Texas Intermediate touched a high of $50.05 but subsequently fell $1.77 to settle at $44.51 a barrel after US equities weakened. ICE January Brent lost $1.81 to close at $44.60 a barrel.