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November Ushers in Choppy Oil, Natural Gas Prices


03.11.2009

November Ushers in Choppy Oil, Natural Gas Prices

Entering a new month of trading, oil climbed to more than $78 on the New York Mercantile Exchange during choppy trading on Monday as impressive manufacturing data from the world's top consumer ultimately helped push the commodity's price slightly higher than Friday's close. Conversely, the price of natural gas tumbled to less than $5 during November's opening session.

Despite a slight weakening in price last week, the oil market has not lost its upward momentum and remains at its strongest level for 2009. The energy commodity looks to be taking firm root in the $75-$80 trading range, having surpassed the lower end of this range in mid-October.

During Monday's trading, however, crude failed to raise the bar above a high of $82 reached in late October, gaining only $1.13 from last week's ending price to settle at $78.13 on the NYMEX.

"Today was one of those really strange days. Crude tried to rally, fell all the way back and actually went into negative numbers, and here, late in the day, rallied again," commented Darin Newsom, senior analyst with DTN, a market information service in Omaha, Nebraska.

"What's interesting to me is that natural gas was strong last week and so it came down; crude oil was a bit weaker last week and so it went up," the analyst noted. "So, the action that we saw in the markets to close out the month last week seemed to reverse itself today, and I think we're going to have to be ready for these types of choppy markets for quite some time."

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