The price of crude oil was moving higher Tuesday morning after euro zone ministers and the International Monetary Fund reached an agreement to help reduce Greece's debt.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for January delivery, edged up $0.14 to $87.88 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled lower tracking declining global equity markets while awaiting cues from the euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels, even as the dollar strengthened against most major currencies.
This morning, the U.S. dollar was lingering around its 3-week low versus the euro and sterling. The buck continued to level off from its 7-month high versus the yen and ticking higher against the Swiss franc.
In economic news from the euro zone, the U.K. economy expanded 1 percent sequentially in the third quarter as previously estimated, ending three straight quarters of contraction, second estimate published by the Office for National Statistics showed. The third quarter growth follows a 0.4 percent decline in the second quarter and a 0.3 percent drop in the first quarter of 2012.
Meanwhile, a report from the Federal Statistical Office revealed that Germany's import price inflation slowed to 1.5 percent annually in October.. Economists had forecast the annual rate to remain unchanged at 1.8 percent. Month-on-month, import prices were down 0.6 percent, compared to a 0.7 percent drop a month ago. It was forecast to ease just 0.3 percent in October.
Traders will look to the durable goods orders report for October from the US Commerce Department, due out at 8:30 am ET. Economists expect durable goods orders to decline by 0.8 percent from the previous month, while excluding transportation orders are expected to dip by a more modest 0.4 percent.
The results of the S&P/Case-Shiller house price survey will be released at 9 am ET. The 20-city composite house price index is expected to have increased by 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in September. The unadjusted index is also likely to have risen by 0.4 percent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is due to deliver brief welcoming remarks at the National College Fed Challenge Finals, in Washington at 8:30 am ET.
Today after the market hours, the API will release its US crude oil inventories report for the weekended November 23.
