Crude extends winning streak

Prices gain for fourth straight day

Crude prices shot up once again on Monday, 28 December 2009. This was the fourth consecutive rise for crude and its longest winning streak since October this year. Prices rose as the dollar fell and due to rising geo political tensions in the Middle East. Good retail sales data during pre Christmas shopping also lifted oil prices in anticipation of higher demand in coming months.

On Monday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for February delivery closed at $78.77/barrel (higher by $0.72 or 0.9%). Last week, crude ended higher by 4.9%.

Crude ended month of November, higher by 0.4%. It reached a high of $82 earlier in October this year. Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 43% since then.

In the currency market on Monday, the dollar index, which weighs the strength of dollar against the basket of six other currencies fell by almost 0.4%.

A report from MasterCard's Spending Pulse unit showed that retail sales for the holiday season rose 3.6% from the year earlier period through Christmas Eve.

In the latest meet at Angola last week, members of the OPEC oil cartel decided to make no changes to current production quotas. The decision was in line with market expectations. In keeping its quotas unchanged, OPEC cited "shrinking industrial production, low private consumption and high unemployment" in the global economy.

Among other energy products on Monday, January gasoline rose 2.88 cents, or 1.4%, to $2.0184 a gallon and January heating oil gained 3.79 cents, or 1.9%, to $2.0735 a gallon.

Also on Monday, the big winner was January natural gas, which rallied 34.7 cents, or 6.1%, to $5.99 per million British thermal units.

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