Crude rises for fifth straight day

Traders ignore latest report from OPEC

Crude prices ended higher for fifth straight day as prices closed tad higher on Tuesday, 11 October at Nymex. Prices rose as the strong dollar pared almost all its gains and ended flat going into close.

Light and sweet crude for November delivery rose $0.40 (0.5%) to $85.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday. It touched a low of $83.97 during intra day trading. Last week, crude gained 4.8%. For the month of September, oil futures lost 11%, and for the quarter, crude incurred losses of 17%. It was the worst quarterly performance for crude in almost two years.



The oil market showed little reaction to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries further trimming its 2011-2012 growth forecast for global oil demand. In a monthly report, OPEC cut the global demand growth forecast for this year by 180,000 barrels of oil a day. The cartel also warned it could cut the outlook again.

US stocks had a choppy trading session on Tuesday. Stocks had a mixed finish with only Nasdaq managing to end in the green. Early traders took most of their cues from Europe, where the region's major bourses moved listlessly after scoring strong gains of their own in recent sessions. Slovakia has attracted attention since political fighting there has kept officials from signing off on the expansion of the EFSF, resulting in some uncertainty over the matter.

Meanwhile, news that the Troika will make another disbursement of financial aid to Greece failed to regenerate buying interest, mostly because the short-term nature of the aid doesn't fully diminish the threat of a default by the country over a longer time span.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, headed up strongly earlier during the day after yesterday's big slump. But, the dollar pared its gains going to the close and ended flat for the day.

Among other energy products on Tuesday, November gasoline added 5 cents to $2.75 a gallon. November heating oil finished flat at $2.90 a gallon.

November natural gas closed at $3.62 per million British thermal units, up 7.5 cents (2.1%).

At the MCX, crude oil for October delivery closed higher by Rs 53 (1.3%) at Rs 4,240/barrel. Natural gas for October delivery closed at Rs 177.9, higher by Rs 4.5 (2.6%).