Crude-oil futures ended lower at Nymex on Tuesday, 22 July 2014 coming off a three-week high ahead of weekly supply reports.
Light, sweet crude futures for August delivery fell 17 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $104.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Market expects the Energy Information Administration inventories report to show a decline by 2.6 million barrels in the week ended 18 July. U.S. refineries ran at 93.8% of capacity in the week ended 11 July 2014, the highest level for the week since 2005.
A firmer U.S. dollar index on Tuesday, in which prices hit a five-week high, was also bearish for the commodity markets. There was a bit more investor and trader risk appetite in the market place Tuesday, as U.S. and some other major world stock indexes traded higher. However, geopolitics remains on the front burner of the market place. Tensions in Israel and Ukraine remain high.
It was a busier day for U.S. economic data Tuesday. Data out included the weekly Johnson Redbook and Goldman Sachs retail sales reports, the consumer price index, real earnings, the monthly U.S. house price index, existing home sales and the Richmond Fed business survey. The consumer price index was the most important report on Tuesday. However, that reading came in as expected—up 0.3% in June—and the markets saw no significant price reactions.
Among other energy products, Nymex reformulated gasoline for August declined a little over 1 cent, or 0.4%, to end at $2.8807 a gallon, while August heating oil was off less than a penny, or 0.2%, to settle at $2.8542 a gallon.
Natural-gas futures for August delivery was off 8 cents, or 2%, to $3.7720 per million British thermal units.