By Kristene Quan and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Oil futures climbed for the first time in three days during European trading hours on Tuesday on hopes for more policy action from Beijing to support the Chinese economy.
Light sweet crude for November delivery CLX2 +0.48% jumped 43 cents, or 0.5%, to $89.77 a barrel.
The rise came after oil futures on Monday fell for a second session, shedding 55 cents, or 0.6%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Tuesday’s advance coincided with a rally in Chinese and Hong Kong stocks, after the People’s Bank of China offered 265 billion yuan ($42.1 billion) via reverse repurchase agreements in an open-market operation to ease tight liquidity conditions in the local banking system. Read Asia Markets.
PBOC Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan, meanwhile, said monetary policy must remain flexible and set with a preemptive bias to help counter the weak external environment, according to media reports.
Investors also looked to the euro zone, where finance ministers met in Luxembourg with Spain’s potential bailout request and Greece’s debt situation on the agenda.
The meeting started Monday with Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker officially launching the European Stability Mechanism, which was later assigned triple-A ratings by Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.
Global growth was also on investors’ minds, after the International Monetary Fund at its meeting in Tokyo said the economy will expand less than previously estimated.
In 2012, the global economy is expected to grow 3.3%, down from an earlier 3.5% forecast, while 2013 growth was revised down to 3.6% from 3.9%. See: IMF cuts 2012, 2013 global growth forecasts
Elsewhere in the energy complex, heating oil for November delivery HOX2 +0.43% rose 0.5% to $3.16 a gallon, and gasoline for delivery in the same month RBX2 +0.91% increased 0.8% to $2.92 a gallon.
Natural-gas futures for November delivery NGX12 -0.09% slipped 0.1% to $3.40 per million British thermal units.
Kristene Quan is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Hong Kong.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London.
