SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures advanced Tuesday, pushing past $101 a barrel and hovering at a five-week high as traders favored New York-traded oil over its European counterpart.
Crude oil for March delivery CL2H +0.38% gained 55 cents, or 0.6%, to $101.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Futures shrugged off weakness in U.S. stocks, which opened lower, and government data that showed retail sales rising less than analysts expected. A higher dollar also kept a lid on prices.
Some technical buying helped move the New York-based oil benchmark higher, said Jim Ritterbusch, president of oil trading advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates in Illinois.
“There’s an unwinding of Brent (trading),” he said.
Brent crude for March delivery UK:BRN2H -0.09% declined 16 cents, or 0.1%, to $117.28 a barrel on ICE Futures London.
The difference between New York-traded oil and Brent, which is more sensitive to threats of supply disruptions and considered a better gauge of global conditions, had been growing in recent sessions.
Some positive news out of Germany also helped crude prices. A gauge of investor sentiment there rose to 5.4 in February, from minus 21.6 in January and contrasting with expectations of minus 11.6. Read more on ZEW index.
“After the body blow of Moody’s wielding the credit-cutting axe for a number of European countries last night, a decent investor confidence number from Germany” on Tuesday has kept things up, said Matt Smith, an analyst with Summit Energy, in a note to clients.
Moody’s late Monday cut a number of euro countries’ debt ratings, including Spain’s by two notches and Italy and Portugal by one notch. It also cut the outlooks on Austria, France, and the U.K. to negative.
Some of the optimism that took oil to a five-week high settlement stayed in the markets.
Oil on Monday closed at its best since early January following Greece’s approval of an austerity program and concerns about supply disruptions in the wake of an attack and a foiled attempt on Israeli embassies blamed on Iran. Read more on Monday’s oil markets.
Traders are waiting for the first volley of U.S. supply data, with the American Petroleum Institute scheduled to release its inventories report late Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration is expected to report official data on Wednesday.
Analysts polled by Platts expect crude supplies to be up 1.9 million barrels in the week ending Feb. 10. Gasoline stockpiles are seen up 600,000 barrels, while inventories of distillates, which include heating oil, are seen down 600,000 barrels.
March gasoline RB2H -0.98% declined 2 cents, or 0.7%, to $2.99 a gallon. Heating oil for the same month’s delivery HO2H +0.08% rose less than 1 cent, or 0.2%, to $3.16 a gallon.
Meanwhile, natural gas for March delivery NG12H +4.61% rose 10 cents, or 4%, to $2.53 per million British thermal units. The contract declined 1.9% on Monday, its lowest settlement since Feb. 1. Year to date, prices are down 19%.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
