By Claudia Assis and Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures lost ground in Tuesday as part of a broader sell-off across commodity markets in the aftermath of a ratings warning for Europe.
Crude futures for January delivery CL2F -0.16% shed 31 cents, or 0.3%, to trade at $100.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The European news flow turned negative on Tuesday, dampening sentiment across equity and commodity markets.
Debt ratings agency Standard & Poor’s placed the sovereign ratings of 15 euro-zone countries on watch for a possible downgrade. Read more about the S&P downgrade warning.
The dollar traded higher on the move, adding further pressure to oil and other raw materials.
The dollar index DXY -0.05% , which measures the U.S. unit against a basket of six other major currencies, recently came off its highs, however.
It rose to 78.606, from 78.654 in North American trade late Monday.
A stronger greenback tends to discourage investment in dollar-denominated crude, as it makes the commodity more expensive to holders of other currencies.
Oil’s losses preceded the release of weekly U.S. supply reports from the American Petroleum Institute, due later Tuesday, followed by the more closely watched Energy Information Administration inventory report on Wednesday.
Analysts polled by Platts forecast a drawdown of 1.3 million barrels of U.S. commercial crude inventories for the week ending Dec. 2.
Other energy products were mixed, with gasoline and heating oil trading higher. January gasoline RB2F +0.64% gained 2 cents, or 0.5%, to $2.63 a gallon. January heating oil HO2F +0.48% added less than a penny, or 0.2%, to $2.99 a gallon.
January natural gas NG12F -0.38% fell, however, off 2 cents, or 0.5%, to $3.44 per million British thermal units.
