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Oil sees choppy trade ahead of inventory data - Futures Movers

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Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013 01:38

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By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , MarketWatch LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — U.S. oil futures edged higher in choppy electronic trade Wednesday as investors looked ahead to weekly inventory reports. Crude oil for March delivery /quotes/zigman/2291769 CLH3 +0.13% were little changed, gaining 2 cents to trade at $96.68 a barrel, ahead of the contract’s expiration at the end of the global day. The moves follow March crude’s 80-cent advance in Tuesday’s floor session on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Those gains came in the wake of upbeat German data, and as the S&P 500 /quotes/zigman/3870025 SPX +0.73% rallied to a new five-year high. Read: Oil futures end higher, back above $96 a barrel But analysts at Citi Futures said that the market could be ignoring bearish supply fundamentals. Oil sees choppy trade ahead of inventory data - Futures Movers

Oil sees choppy trade ahead of inventory data - Futures Movers

Reuters

“Focus on the S&P rally and the intermediate-term rally in crude-oil prices, for example, and one might miss that U.S. crude-oil production has averaged…21.8% higher than a year ago over the past four weeks, contributing to rising U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories,” they said in a note late Tuesday.

The market was set to get weekly U.S. oil-inventory numbers from the American Petroleum Institute later in the day, followed Thursday by the more closely watched Energy Information Administration report, with both delayed due to Monday’s holiday.

Meanwhile, rival London-traded benchmark Brent North Sea crude saw a slight drop, with the April Brent contract /quotes/zigman/2735833 UK:LCOJ3 -0.05% falling 16 cents or 0.1%, to $117.36 a barrel.

GFT Markets technical analyst Fawad Razaqzada said both Brent and Nymex crude remained in their recent trading ranges

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“Brent appears as if it has reached a ceiling around $119, although we will have to wait and see whether the bears can take out the $116.70 support on a closing basis,” he wrote Tuesday.

Razaqzada pegged Nymex crude’s recent peak at $98 a barrel, saying “it too needs to break down its own support at $95 before more losses can be seen. Otherwise it is onwards and upwards from here, with the general trend still remaining bullish.”

Other energy futures were mostly higher Wednesday, as March natural gas /quotes/zigman/2294272 NGH13 +0.49% rose 0.3% to $3.28 per million British thermal units, while March heating oil /quotes/zigman/2202749 HOH3 +0.33% added 0.2% to $3.19 a gallon.

However, March gasoline /quotes/zigman/2052322 RBH3 -0.10% slipped less than a penny, sticking to the $3.12-a-gallon level seen at Tuesday’s Nymex close.

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