Oil Closes Over $100 as Stock Markets Soar
Oil closed over $100 a barrel Wednesday for just the second time since June on an improved economic picture and soaring stock markets, Bloomberg reported.
Benchmark light sweet crude futures rose 57 cents to finish the New York Mercantile Exchange trading day at $100.36 a barrel, Bloomberg said.
Oil had last finished over $100 on Nov. 16, for just the first time since June. Prices held over $100 in early trading Thursday, Bloomberg reported.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped almost 500 points Wednesday, a 4.2% gain, its biggest gain in since March 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Oil inventories jumped by 3.9 million barrels last week, the Department of Energy reported Wednesday — well over the 50,000-barrel gain that had been forecast by analysts, Bloomberg said.
Distillate inventories, which include diesel, rose 5.5 million barrels and gasoline stockpiles rose by 200,000 barrels, DOE said in its weekly report.
