The price of crude oil was ticking higher Tuesday morning as traders were cautious ahead of the parliamentary vote on the bank tax proposal in Cyprus.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for May delivery, the most actively traded contract, ticked up $0.06 to $94.17 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled higher after having dipped below $92 a barrel earlier in the day over developments in Cyprus where the government plans to vote on a controversial deposit tax as part of a bailout agreement with international lenders. Investor sentiments dampened after the Cyprus bailout package sought to include a bank-deposit tax with depositors having to take losses on their deposit.
This morning, the U.S. dollar was trading near a four-month high versus the euro, while lingering near a 2-week low against sterling. The buck was hovering around its two-and- half year high versus the yen and trading flat against the Swiss franc.
In economic news from the euro zone, U.K. inflation rose marginally as expected to 2.8 percent in February from 2.7 percent in January, the Office for National Statistics showed. On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.7 percent, reversing January's 0.5 percent drop. Core inflation that excludes energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, remained unchanged at 2.3 percent.
Meanwhile, Germany's economic confidence improved for the fourth successive month in March, and exceeded economists' expectations, latest data showed. The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment moved up to 48.5 points in March from 48.2 points in February, marking the fourth consecutive increase, a survey by the Center for European Economic Research/ZEW showed. The latest reading exceeded the consensus forecast of 48.1 points.
Traders will look to the housing starts report from the U.S. Commerce Department, due out at 8:30 am ET. Economists expect housing starts to come in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 919,000 units in February, up from 890,000 in the previous month. Building permits are expected to remain unchanged at 925,000 units.
Today after the market hours, the API will release its US crude oil inventories report for the weekended March 15.
