Crude price moves up

Prices rise as Fed Chairman hints at more stimuli Crude prices ended higher on Monday, 26 March 2012 at Nymex. Prices moved up following a weak dollar and comments from Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman who put hopes of more stimuli across the table thereby increasing the prospect of higher energy demand. Light and sweet crude for May delivery rose $0.16 (0.2%) to $107.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. Prices earlier wavered between small gains and losses. Prices gained 8.7% during February 2012. Oil prices rose following Bernanke's speech to an economic group. Ahead of the opening bell, Bernanke said it's not yet certain that the recent pace of improvement in the nation's labor market will be sustained. In a speech to business economists, Bernanke said gains in the labor market since last fall could be due to the reversing of large layoffs from earlier in the recession, and that faster economic growth may be the key to further improvements. The Fed chief also said the U.S. economy still could sputter and needs to show continued growth. He also hinted that accommodative Fed monetary policy is still needed to keep the U.S. economic wheels greased. This led to speculation of a third round of quantitative easing of U.S. monetary policy. In the currency market on Monday, the Dollar Index, which weighs the strength of dollar against basket of six other currencies fell by almost 0.45%. Among economic data expected for the day, The National Association of Realtors in US reported on Monday, 26 March 2012 that pending home sales dipped slightly in February to 96.5% last month from 97.0% in January, although it's still 9.2 percentage points above its year-ago level. By region, pending home sales rose 6.5%% in the Midwest, but dropped 3.0% in the South, 2.6% in the West and 0.6% in the Northeast. Among other traded energy products on Monday, gasoline for April delivery rose 3 cents, or 0.9%, to end the day at $3.42 a gallon. April heating oil gained 2 cents, or 0.6%, to $3.23 a gallon. Natural gas for April delivery slipped 5 cents, or 2.2%, to $2.23 per million British thermal units. At the MCX, crude oil for April delivery closed lower by Rs 7 (0.12%) at Rs 5,480/barrel. Natural gas for April delivery closed lower by Rs 2.7 (2.1%) at Rs 121.7.