The price of crude oil was lingering below the $80-mark for a fourth session Tuesday morning amid concerns over the global economic growth.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for August delivery, edged up $0.13 to $79.34 a barrel. Yesterday, oil ended lower on demand concerns and a strong dollar that continued to gain against most major currencies. Investors also weighed the upcoming European Union summit meeting later in the week with little or no hopes of any resolution to the euro zone debt problems.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar was steady around its two-week high versus the euro and ticking lower against sterling. The buck continued to level off from its one-month high against the yen, while trading flat versus the Swiss franc.
In economic news from the euro zone, confidence among German consumers is likely to rise in July, a survey by market research group GfK showed today. The consumer confidence index for July rose to 5.8 from 5.7 in June. Economists expected the score to fall to 5.6 in July.
Traders will look to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, due out at 9 a.m..ET Economists expect a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent month-over-month increase in the 20-city composite house price index for April.
Later during the session, the Conference Board is scheduled to release its consumer confidence report for June at 10 am ET. The report is expected to show that the consumer confidence index declined to 63.5 in June from 64.9 in May.
Today after the market hours, the API will release its U.S. crude oil inventories report for the weekended June 22.
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