Oil hovers around $64 on encouraging company results

• Source: xinhua
• [13:31 July 21 2009]
• Comments

Oil prices hovered around $64 a barrel Monday as some of the major US companies reported encouraging results for the second quarter.

Oil prices followed the lead of Asian and European stock markets and kept rising in the earlier session. Light, sweet crude for August delivery peaked at 64.90 dollars a barrel in the morning, boosted by strong second quarter company performances, before retreating to settle at 63.98 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Earnings reports from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Intel Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other major companies, released last week, painted an upbeat picture, and brought some optimism back into the market. Investors now are waiting for more company data to get some clue for the entire economy.

Meanwhile, the dollar fell to a six-week low against the euro on Monday, boosting demand for dollar-priced assets such as oil to hedge against inflation.

In London, Brent crude for September delivery rose 1.06 dollars to settle at 66.44 dollars a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.