Investing.com – The assurance of authorities that all’s well and dandy on the U.S. banking front hasn’t won the confidence of Moody’s, which downgraded the sector on Tuesday, sending crude prices down almost 5% on the notion that an economy in trouble won’t help oil.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude settled down $3.47, or 4.7%, at $71.33 per barrel, after a two-month low at $70.94. With Monday’s 2.4% on WTI, the U.S. crude benchmark has lost  more than 7% since this week began.

Despite this, Moody’s issued a downgrade of the banking sector, citing a “rapidly deteriorating operating environment” that it said carried risks associated with the Fed’s plan to continue raising interest rates. The central bank has added 450 basis points to rates over the past year to control headline inflation, which the Consumer Price Index showed stood at 6% during the year to February, three times above the Fed’s annual 2% target.