MW: Crude-oil futures gain in early trade as dollar falls
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures traded higher Tuesday, rebounding after falling nearly 6% in the previous session, as the U.S. dollar fell against rivals and Americans headed to the polls to elect their next president.
Crude oil for December delivery rose $1.01 to $64.91 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.
On Monday, crude fell $3.90, or 5.8%, to close at $63.91 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange amid ongoing concerns about the impact of a global economic slowdown on energy demand.
On Wall Street, U.S. stock futures indicated a higher opening Tuesday, with some analysts saying that much of the bad news around the economy and corporate profits are already priced into stocks. Dow Industrial futures rose 183 points. See Indications.
Tuesday's focus is on politics as Americans choose which Senator they'd like to run the White House for the next four years, Barack Obama or John McCain. The Senate contest also will be in the spotlight as a third of the upper chamber's seats are up for grabs.
"Market participants are possibly nervous though ahead of the U.S. election and so we may not see a more significant move in crude until after the result is announced," said Michael Davies, an analyst at Sucden Research, in a note.
In the currency markets, the U.S. dollar fell against other major currencies, with the dollar index dropping 0.5% to 85.42. The euro rose 1.9% to $1.2810.
"Implied volatility has continued to fall suggesting the euro could move higher in coming days, with market participants likely to look past today's U.S. presidential elections toward what could be horrendous jobs numbers on Friday," wrote currency strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman.
Dollar weakness typically boosts dollar-denominated commodities such as crude oil and gold.
Also on the Globex Tuesday, December reformulated gasoline rose 2 cents to $1.38 a gallon and December heating oil gained 4 cents to $2.02 a gallon.
December natural gas futures rose 12 cents to $6.96 per million British thermal units.
