By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. crude-oil futures jumped to briefly top the $100-a-barrel level Monday, spurred by a strong start to the holiday-shopping season, a weaker dollar and a strong start to equities.
Light, sweet crude futures for January delivery CL2F +2.10% jumped $2.25, or 2.3%, to $99.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, sliding back a little after the contract hit a high of $100.73 during electronic trading earlier in the day.
Front-month crude futures had last hit the $100-mark on Nov. 16, when it topped $102 a barrel.
The jump came in the wake of a strong start to the holiday-shopping season, as consumers spent $11.4 billion on “Black Friday,” according to data ShopperTrak data, 7% more than they did a year earlier, by Associated Press’s calculations.
Also giving crude a shot in the arm, news reports said European officials have agreed on how to leverage a rescue fund for the region. Read more about the reported agreement.
Moves in the dollar and the stock market also kept crude supported.
The U.S. dollar index DXY -0.88% slipped to 78.839 from 79.688 in North American trading Friday, boosting commodities priced in the greenback, including crude-oil. Read currencies report.
U.S. stocks surged at the opening, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +2.72% rising more than 250 points after dropping in the previous four sessions.
Natural gas futures slid back, meanwhile, to retrace some of the strong advances made last week. The December natural gas contract NG11Z -2.43% slipped 7.2 cents, or 2%, to $3.47 per million British thermal units, after jumping 6.6% last week.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
