Oil prices extended their relentless slide on Wednesday, with Brent crude falling below $50 a barrel for the first time since 2009. Brent futures dropped by more than 2% to an intraday low of $49.66 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Exchange before recovering some ground to trade around $50.37 a barrel. At last year’s peak in June, Brent traded at more than $115. “We’ve fallen through $50 far quicker than we did through $60 and $70,” said Kash Kamal, analyst at Sucden Financial. “This seems driven by sentiment but there is also no fundamental reason to expect a bottom either.” On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February recently traded at $47.39 a barrel, down $0.56 from Tuesday’s settlement. Wednesday’s decline is the latest landmark in a six-month-long selloff spurred by booming production in the U.S. and fears that a slowdown in […]