Sweet Crude Rollercoaster
After a huge sell-off this week, oil prices wavered. More data is starting to predict that energy demand here at home in the U.S will continue to fall.
Sweet crude rose early today after a 10% decline in prices yesterday, but bad news about the U.S housing & auto markets helped to raise those gains.
Benchmark crude for April delivery rose 39 cents to $40.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude rose 44 cents to $42.65 on the ICE Futures exchange.
Earlier today the National Association of Realtors said pending home sales sank to a new low in January. The group’s seasonally adjusted index of pending sales contracts fell 7.7 percent to 80.4 in January from a downwardly revised December reading of 87.1. January’s reading was far worse than the 85.1 economists expected, according to Thomson Reuters, and came in below the previous record low of 83.1 in November.
Two hours later, Ford Motor Co.’s reported its U.S. sales fell 48 percent in February with consumers turning down even huge rebates and low-interest financing .
Crude prices have made modest recoveries after large downward movements, but the trend still is lower.