By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Oil futures slipped in electronic trading on Tuesday, putting the commodity on track for its first loss in four sessions.
Oil for January delivery CLF3 -0.22% slipped 39 cents to $88.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Monday’s New York trading session saw oil rise for a third session to gain 2.8% over the trading period.
“There were several reasons behind this rally, a couple of which being stronger-than-expected Chinese manufacturing and services PMI readings for November,” said Fawad Razaqzada at GFT Markets.
“The data helped to ease some of the demand-side concerns arising from soft economic pointers we have seen recently from emerging markets,” said Razaqzada.
Going forward, Citi energy strategists said that they expect weekly U.S. inventory data to focus investor attention in the near term, with American Petroleum Institute data out later Tuesday and Department of Energy figures due Wednesday.
Around the wider energy complex, January heating oil HOF3 -0.61% slipped 1 cent to $3.04 a gallon while January gasoline RBF3 -0.63% also declined 1 cent to trade at $2.72 to a gallon
Natural gas for January delivery NGF13 -0.39% traded flat at $2.59 per million British thermal units.
Sarah Turner is MarketWatch's bureau chief in Sydney. Follow her on Twitter @SarahTurnerMKTW.
