By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Oil futures hovered near the flat line on Tuesday after the long weekend and ahead of U.S. housing data.
Oil for February delivery CLG3 +0.13% , which expires on Tuesday, inched 5 cents lower, or 0.1%, to $95.51 a barrel in electronic trading.
The more-actively traded March contract CLH3 +0.15% was down 12 cents to $95.94 a barrel.
Floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange was closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
On Tuesday, oil prices struggled to push higher in thin trading after the U.S. holiday and as global equity markets broadly showed downbeat trends. See: Stock futures steady; earnings, data in focus
Investors are awaiting data on U.S. existing-home sales due at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Oil prices, however, found some support in hopes that China, the world’s second largest oil consumer, will need more energy in 2013. Analysts at Barclays said they expect a sizable increase in demand growth to 460,000 barrels of oil a day in 2013 from 330,000 barrels a day in 2012.
Oil investors also digested monetary-easing moves from the Bank of Japan, which announced plans to boost the economy. The central bank formally adopted a 2% inflation target and said it would continue its asset purchases on an “open-ended” basis. See: Bank of Japan to adopt 2% inflation target
And in Europe, the German ZEW economic-expectations index unexpectedly jumped to the highest level since May 2010, adding 24.6 points to stand at 31.5. See: German ZEW index jumps more than expected
The U.S. dollar index DXY -0.16% fell to 79.90 from 80.046 late on Monday in North America trade. A weaker greenback tends to support commodity prices as they get cheaper for holders of other currencies.
Elsewhere in the energy complex, gasoline for February delivery RBG3 +2.10% rose 0.8% to $2.82 a gallon, while heating oil for the same month HOG3 +2.00% climbed 0.9% to $3.08 a gallon.
February natural gas added 1.4% to $3.62 per million British thermal units.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter based in London. Follow her on Twitter @sarasjolin.
