By Kristene Quan and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch)—Crude-oil futures traded higher Thursday in electronic dealings, paring some of the heavy losses seen in the previous day’s U.S. session.
Benchmark U.S. crude for December delivery CLZ2 +0.81% rose 64 cents, or 0.8%, to $85.07 a barrel.
The rise came after oil futures fell $4.27—a drop of 4.8%—during Wednesday’s New York Mercantile Exchange floor trade to settle at $84.44 a barrel, the lowest settlement since July 10 and the largest one-day dollar and percentage decline since Dec. 14, 2011.
“Wednesday was much more about a trading whipsaw to the downside on a sharp swing in market sentiment than it was about any news shocks, with a U.S. presidential election outcome that was one of the two known possible outcomes and consistent with much of the state-by-state polling, and a weaker euro on the latest Greek worries as no surprise at this point,” said Citi analyst Timothy Evans.
Worries over Greece eased, however, in Thursday’s trade, as the parliament late Wednesday passed a batch of unpopular austerity measures seen as necessary for the country to receive its next bailout installation. See: Greece passes fresh austerity measures: reports
The U.S. dollar offered little influence over the Thursday moves for oil, with the ICE dollar index DXY +0.22% , measuring the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, edging higher to 80.971 from 80.781 in late North American trade Wednesday.
Later in the day, investors will focus on U.S. jobless claims due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
In Europe, central banks grabbed the attention, ahead of both the European Central Bank and Bank of England scheduled to announce their latest monetary policy decisions. Both banks are widely expected to leave rates on hold.
Among other energy products, heating-oil for December delivery HOZ2 +0.47% rose 0.5% to $2.98 a gallon, and gasoline for delivery in the same month RBZ2 +0.97% advanced 1% to $2.61 a gallon.
Natural-gas futures for December delivery NGZ12 -1.37% were down 1.4% at $3.53 per million British thermal units.
Kristene Quan is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Hong Kong.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London.
