Crude marks first drop in four sessions

Strong dollar pulls down crude

Crude prices ended lower on Tuesday, 28 July, 2009. Prices dropped for the first time in four sessions today. Prices faltered due to the relatively strong dollar.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $67.23/barrel (lower by $1.15 or 1.7%). Prices fell to a low of $66.6 earlier during the day. Last week, crude ended higher by 7.1%.

For the month of June, 2009, crude ended higher by 5.5%. In May, crude had registered the largest monthly gain in a decade rising 30%. For the second quarter, crude ended higher by 40%. Crude prices had rallied 11.3% in the first quarter of 2009.

Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 54.4% since then. In July, 2009, it has dropped by 4.5% till date. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 41.8%.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback's value, rose by more than 0.4%. The dollar strengthened on weak consumer confidence data.

The Conference Board reported on Tuesday, 28 July, 2009 that consumer confidence took its second consecutive monthly drop in July, 2009. The index dropped to 46.6 in July from an unrevised 49.3 in June. In May, the confidence gauge stood at 54.8. The confidence measure was worse than expected. Market was expecting confidence to dip to 48 in July from the June reading.

Also at the Nymex on Tuesday, August reformulated gasoline fell 2.41 cents to $1.9106 a gallon and August heating oil dropped 3.19 cents to $1.7647 a gallon.

August natural gas futures declined 6.90 cents to $3.5350 per million British thermal units.

Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for August delivery closed lower by Rs 41 (1.24