LONDON (Dow Jones)--Crude futures held their ground Wednesday, supported by a weak dollar and optimistic sentiment after Tuesday's data from the American Petroleum Institute. But traders were reluctant to push crude higher ahead of the release of widely-watched oil inventories data by the U.S. Department of Energy, due 1430 GMT, partly due to frequent disparity between the two sets of data. Meanwhile European equities markets were mostly stable in Wednesday morning trade, failing to further boost crude oil futures. At 1020 GMT, the front-month November Brent contract on London's ICE futures exchange was up 48 cents at $69.04 a barrel. The front-month November light, sweet, crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading 44 cents higher at $71.32 a barrel. The ICE's gasoil contract for October delivery was down $2.25 at $566.25 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for November delivery was up 131 points at 178.58 cents a gallon. Despite increasingly close correlation between crude oil and other financial markets over the past few months, analysts believe oil market fundamentals still play a decisive role. "It remains possible that continued underlying weakness in the U.S. dollar, coupled with improved equity market sentiment if the upcoming earnings season proves to be more upbeat than expected, could push oil prices higher," KBC Market Services said in its monthly report on the oil market outlook. "However, likely sustained high oil inventories and possibly bearish developments on position limits [by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission] have reduced the chances of a sustained break above $75 a barrel over the balance of this year." Research and consulting firm JBC Energy pointed out oil demand won't grow at quickly as the wider economy in the years ahead. The global economy is recovering towards a "new normal" level, "incorporating higher unemployment, lower private spending, greater fiscal imbalances and higher cost of capital, but also a much higher grade of energy efficiency and conservation, in both OECD and non-OECD countries," JBC said in a research note. The API reported late Tuesday that crude oil stocks fell 254,000 barrels from a week earlier in the week ended Oct. 2, while distillate stocks fell 2.913 million barrels and gasoline stocks rose by 544,000 barrels. The data were stronger than market expectations. Regarding the DOE data, the mean of 12 analysts' forecasts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expects crude oil inventories to rise 1.7 million barrels, with distillates and gasoline stocks up 200,000 barrels and 600,000 barrels respectively.

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