Crude Oil Buoyed by Weak Dollar, Positive Manufacturing Data
In a bout of post-weekend short-covering, crude futures edged back into positive territory on the New York Mercantile Exchange this past Monday led by encouraging domestic manufacturing data and a weaker dollar. As the U.S. currency lost ground against the euro, its denominated price of light, sweet crude oil for March delivery gained more than $1.50 from last week’s lower price tag to settle at $74.43 a barrel.
Additionally, Wall Street was encouraged by Exxon Mobil Corp.’s earnings report, which beat out analysts’ expectations. The world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, ExxonMobil posted upstream earnings of $5,780 million, up $146 million from the fourth quarter of 2008.
“Oil prices were starting to lose momentum, and coming in this week, without the dollar continuing to rebound and with better-than-expected manufacturing numbers, the market took that as a sign that things may be turning around,” said analyst Gene McGillian at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. On Friday, the oil price exited the month of January down more than 8% from December 2008.
He continued, “I think that the market is showing strong resistance near $74-$75, and for the price to get boosted above that, we’ll need to see another round of unexpected economic data.”
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