Crude trades at mid-February low; natural gas at weakest in 10 years
By Claudia Assis and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch)—Crude-oil futures came under pressure Tuesday, extending losses into a second day as the dollar moved slightly higher and U.S. equities traded lower.
Crude for May delivery CLK2 -0.63% lost 49 cents, or 0.5%, at $101.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract fell 85 cents for its lowest settlement since mid-February on Monday, as energy traders got their first chance to react to Friday nonfarm-payrolls numbers and didn’t like what they saw: a disappointing 120,000 jobs added in March, under the 200,000 mark for the first month in four. Economists had expected a gain of 210,000 jobs.
Prices briefly traded in the black earlier Tuesday, but the short-lived run ended as U.S. stocks added to losses.
A firmer U.S. dollar further weighed negatively on oil. The dollar index DXY +0.09% , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of six currencies, stood at 79.845, off from 79.759 late Monday.
A stronger dollar tends to send dollar-denominated commodities south as they get more expensive for investors holding other currencies. See story about currencies
Analysts also pointed to high U.S. crude inventories.
“At some state, the market may also want to focus more on the buildup in U.S. commercial crude-oil stocks, with the further increase expected for the week ended April 6 likely to push the total to the highest level for this point in the year since 1990,” Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans wrote in a note to clients.
Back to the century mark?
However, other analysts doubted the price of oil would slip below the $100 mark, based partly on robust demand from China.
“China raised prices at the pump for gasoline and diesel in March, improving profitability for the refineries and thus pointing to continued high levels of crude-oil imports to the country,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note.
Chinese stocks rose as the country unexpectedly swung back to a trade surplus in March from February’s deficit. China’s trade balance in March
Japanese stocks pared early gains after the Bank of Japan left its policy rates unchanged, and maintained the size of its asset-purchase program, belying some expectations that the central bank would further expand its monetary stimulus. See more about the Bank of Japan decision.
Among other energy products, natural gas for May delivery NGK12 -2.09% lost 4 cents, or 2%, to $2.06 per million British thermal units, returning to their lowest in a decade.
May gasoline futures RBK2 -0.47% retreated 2 cents, or 0.7%, at $3.28 a gallon, while May heating oil HOK2 -0.79% slipped 2 cents, or 0.7% to $3.12 a gallon.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London. V. Phani Kumar in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
