NEW YORK--Oil futures edged lower Monday as traders weighed the odds of another round of stimulus from the U.S. central bank against weak economic growth and crude-oil demand.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell 78 cents, or 0.8%, to $95.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on ICE Futures Europe fell 12 cents, or 0.1%, to $114.13 a barrel.
Futures slipped as market participants looked ahead to a meeting of the Federal Reserve later this week. Analysts increasingly expect the central bank to take additional steps to stimulate the flagging U.S. economy. Such measures in the past have tended to lift the price of raw materials like oil.
"The easy money is priced in at this point," said Rich Ilczyszyn, chief market strategist at iiTrader, adding that prices are likely to rise only modestly if the Fed takes additional action, and fall sharply if it does nothing.
"It's getting too expensive and there's no [oil] demand," he said.
The Fed meeting follows a disappointing August jobs report announced last week. The Labor Department said the U.S. added just 96,000 jobs last month, well below the gain of 125,000 expected by economists. Unemployment fell to 8.1% from 8.3% as more people left the workforce.
Last month, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted that additional stimulus was on the horizon in a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Such measures typically boost the price of oil by curbing the dollar. That in turn boosts crude by making the dollar-denominated commodity more expensive for holders of other currencies.
Despite the rising odds of Fed action, global oil demand remains sluggish. China, the world's No. 2 oil consumer after the U.S., reported oil imports fell to a 22-month low last month amid weaker demand from refiners. Analysts at Credit Suisse said the fall reflected the country's sensitivity to high oil prices.
In the U.S., demand isn't much better. Last week, petroleum demand fell 0.9%, according to the Energy Information Administration, although demand for gasoline alone rose slightly.
Front-month October reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, recently fell 1.49 cents, or 0.5%, to $3.0047 a gallon. October heating oil fell 0.16 cent, or 0.1%, to $3.1473 a gallon.
