Traders await for weekly inventories data on natural gas
By Claudia Assis and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures made a modest advance Thursday, leaving behind wobbly early trading and getting some steam from a weaker dollar and a dovish stance taken by the Federal Reserve.
Crude for June delivery CLM2 +0.04% added 15 cents, or 0.1%, to $104.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It had earlier traded as low as $103.84 a barrel, according to FactSet Research.
The contract overcame early losses to finish 57 cents a barrel higher on Wednesday, as investors focused on a strong finish for U.S. equities after the Fed’s monetary-policy decision.
Weighing on crude were a greater-than-expected increase in weekly crude inventories and indications that U.S. demand for oil and other energy products is weakening.
Fed officials kept interest rates the same, while their policy statement provided no hint of further quantitative easing. But during a subsequent press conference, top U.S. central banker Ben Bernanke left the door open for more a accommodation if needed to foster further recovery in the leading global economy. Read more about the Fed decision.
Supporting oil and other commodities, the ICE U.S. dollar index DXY -0.17% , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of six currencies, stood at 79.025, down from 79.072 late Wednesday. Read more on currencies.
U.S. stocks opened mixed but soon turned higher.
Also Thursday, the May contract for gasoline RBK2 +0.27% edged up less than a cent to $3.16 a gallon. May heating oil HOK2 +0.81% rose 2 cents, or 0.7%, to $3.18 a gallon.
Natural gas for May delivery NGK12 +2.90% rose 6 cents, or 3.1%, to $2.13 per million British thermal units, ahead of U.S. data on gas in storage last week. Analysts polled by Platts expect an increase between 43 billion and 47 billion cubic feet.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
