Volatile crude ends higher

Strong housing reports boosts crude prices

Crude prices ended little higher on Monday, 27 July, 2009. Prices witnessed volatile trading today but managed to eke out gains finally. Prices were boosted by better than expected housing report.

On Monday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $68.38/barrel (higher by $0.33 or 0.48%). Trading was quite volatile today. Prices rose to a high of $68.99 and fell to a low of $67.6 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 52% since then. In July, 2009, it has dropped by 2.8% till date. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 43.5%.

The Commerce Department reported on Monday, 27 July, 2009 that sales of new homes in the U.S. in June rose by the biggest amount since November 2008, climbing by 11% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000. The report was stronger than expected. Market was expecting a modest increase in new-home sales to 355,000. The report detailed that sales rose by a revised 2.4% in May, thus marking the third consecutive month of gains. Sales rose 1.8% in April, but fell 6.2% in March. Over the past year, sales are down 21.3%.

Also at the Nymex on Monday, August reformulated gasoline gained 1.88 cents to $1.9347 a gallon and August heating oil rose 1.53 cents to $1.7966 a gallon.

August natural-gas futures fell 9.10 cents to $3.604 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 higher by Rs 6 (0.18%) at Rs 3,293/barrel. Natural gas for August delivery closed at Rs 183.9/mmbtu, lower by Rs 2.3/mmbtu (1.23%).