(RTTNews) - The price of oil continued to linger below the $75-mark Tuesday morning on demand and economic growth concerns. NYMEX Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for March 2010 were at $74.60, down $0.66 a barrel.
Today, Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on Japan's sovereign debt rating to negative from stable citing the government's diminishing fiscal flexibility. It further warned of a possible ratings downgrade. Meanwhile, the British economy expanded only 0.1% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2009, after contracting 0.2% in the prior quarter. Economists were expecting an increase of 0.4%.
The price of oil was moving down in the recent past on worries over credit tightening in China, the second largest consumer and after Obama's proposals to cut proprietary trading at large banks, which could pull out large funds from the commodity markets.
In news bearish to oil prices, the U.S. dollar edged up against a basket of currencies. The greenback was up against euro, British pound and the Canadian dollar and was slipping against the yen, after the Bank of Japan held its unsecured overnight call loan rate at 0.1%.
Traders will look to today's crude oil inventories data from the American Petroleum Institute to get clues on the outlook for demand. Consensus estimates points to 1.58 million barrels jump in the week ended January 22, from 330.6 million the previous week.
Report on Consumer Confidence and Housing Price Index from the U.S., due to be released later today, will throw some light on the strength of recovery of the economy.
