Crude holds to gains after consumer data; natural gas at 10-year low
By Claudia Assis and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures traded higher on Tuesday, shaking off some early-trading weakness and vying to end in the black for a third straight session.
Crude for May delivery CLK2 +0.36% rose 47 cents, or 0.4%, to $107.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The front-month contract, which wavered in a tight range, had traded as low as $106.67 a barrel earlier in the session.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s remarks that improvement in the U.S. labor market might not be sustained boosted stocks and commodities on Monday.
Oil prices inched up a modest 16 cents on Monday. Prices had traded in the red in Asian hours Tuesday, but held to their gains after disappointing consumer confidence data.
The Conference Board reported that its gauge of U.S. consumer confidence declined in March to 70.2 from a February reading of 71.6. Economists polled by MarketWatch expected a reading of 71.5 for the month.
High oil prices have replaced Greece and the euro zone’s debt crisis as the focus of concern about the global economy.
Oil’s modest gains following Bernanke’s speech on Monday suggested “at least some concern that oil prices have risen enough already, at least for now,” said Timothy Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective, in a note to clients.
The analyst also cited comments made Monday by International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol that high oil prices in Europe have already started to eat into consumer spending in other areas of the economy.
”Our concern ... is that prices are at levels that dampen direct petroleum demand, whether they are sufficient to damage the overall economy or not,” Evans said.
Traders later Tuesday will get a glimpse of weekly inventories levels, as the American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its report.
The trade group’s data comes ahead of Wednesday’s more closely watched report from the Energy Information Administration. The data are expected to show crude-oil stocks increased by 2.3 million barrels in the week ended March 23, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey. Read preview of the oil inventories data.
Elsewhere in the energy complex, natural-gas futures kept hovering at 10-year lows. April natural-gas futures NGJ12 -1.62% lost 3 cents, or 1.5%, to $2.19 per million British thermal units.
A warmer winter and increased production, especially from shale gas, have hit natural-gas futures, which settled on Monday at their lowest since February 2002.
May gasoline RBK2 -0.33% retreated less than 1 cent, or 0.1%, to $3.41 a gallon. May heating-oil HOK2 -0.43% also fell less than 1 cent, or 0.2%, to $3.22 per gallon.
