05/03 3:45P (DJ) Nymex Close: Crude Hits $19/Bbl, Then Retreats
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Oil futures continued climbing at the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, with the front-month June contract touching $19 a barrel for the first time since Dec. 8, 1997.
The contract did ease in late trading to end the session at $18.80 a barrel, a gain of 22 cents on the day, though the final settlement was not in yet. And while analysts instincts told them the market was overbought, they were gun shy about predicting a correction.
"We are getting a little carried away up here," said Nizam Sharief, an energy analyst with Hornsby & Co., a Houston-based energy trading firm. "I could see $18 to $20 a barrel for crude oil at the end of the year, but now is too soon. And yet here we are."
There has been a confluence of bullish developments in the market to radically shift market sentiment from the desperate bearishness seen late last year, when oil prices hit a 12-year low of $10.35 in December. These factors include the OPEC cuts, lost non-OPEC production, the war in Kosovo, signs of recovery in Asia, refinery problems and the onset of the peak summer gasoline
demand season.
But cries that the market is overbought are growing louder, traders warned.
(MORE) DOW JONES NEWS 05-03-99
03:45 PM |
