Heating oil prices rise for second day

9 February 2010

Written by John King

Heating oil prices climbed alongside crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (February 9th), driven by foreign traders capitalising on the weaker dollar.

The greenback pulled back from recent highs against the euro, although the pound continued to lose ground against the global reserve currency.

During the Asian trading session, this dollar weakness encouraged further buying activity among traders looking to buy hard assets such as crude and heating oil while exchange rates are favourable.

The rally continued as European markets opened, with the headline heating oil contract climbing to $1.896 (€1.377) a gallon, up 1.1 cents on yesterday's settle price, which in turn was up more than a cent on Friday's closing price.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Ken Hasegawa, a commodity derivatives sales manager at Newedge in Tokyo, commented: "This rebound means there is no direction at the moment. We have to watch how the dollar and euro go ahead."

Click here for a home heating oil quote