OIL FUTURES: Nymex Crude Skids on Fed Uncertainty
Last update: 8/23/2012 1:52:38 PM
By Nicole Friedman
NEW YORK--Crude oil futures prices slipped Thursday, quickly falling below the previous day's three-month settlement high on renewed uncertainty about whether the Federal Reserve would indeed take stimulus actions.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery was recently down $1.25, or 1.3%, at $96.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices fell $1.61 between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. EDT.
Brent crude on ICE Futures Europe are down 27 cents, or 0.2%, at $114.64 a barrel.
The president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, James Bullard, said in an interview Thursday with CNBC that the probability of further stimulus from the Fed is "not as high" as the market expects.
"It's clear there's not unanimity of opinion about launch of QE3," said John Kilduff, founding partner of Again Capital, referring to a third round of central-bank bond buying known as quantitative easing.
Ray Carbone, president of Paramount Options, a brokerage company, said crude was following equities lower. Still, he said the drop is a temporary pause in crude's current rally. As of Wednesday's settlement, prices were up more than 10% from Aug. 1.
"Given the trajectory that crude has been on, it's just a little bit of a setback," Mr. Carbone said. "We're making new highs every day."