By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures slipped in choppy electronic trading during Asian business hours Wednesday, weighed by a firmer dollar and as U.S. stock index futures slipped after a five-day rally on Wall Street.
April futures for light, sweet crude-oil CLJ2 -0.23% dropped 20 cents, or 0.2%, to $106.51 a barrel. The front-month contract gained 37 cents Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The U.S. dollar DXY +0.30% strengthened during Asian hours, weighing prices of commodities.
The decline in oil prices also came as Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +1.68% futures declined 21 points during afternoon hours in East Asia. U.S. stock benchmarks rallied for a fifth straight session Tuesday after strong retail sales data and after the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision.
Elsewhere in the energy complex, April heating oil HOJ2 -0.12% and natural gas futures NGJ12 -0.96% fell 0.2% to $3.27 per gallon and 0.8% to $2.28 per million British thermal units, respectively.
April gasoline futures RBJ2 +0.10% rose 0.2% to $3.36 per gallon.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
