By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures retreated a bit Monday from recent gains, playing off China’s weekend interest-rate hike that sparked worry policy makers in Beijing might intensify efforts to curb the country’s economy.
In its second such move in just over two months, the People’s Bank of China on Saturday hiked its main one-year lending and deposit rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
In electronic trading ahead of the New York Mercantile Exchange open, a barrel of benchmark crude for February delivery (CLG11 91.00, -0.51, -0.56%) was off 48 cents at $91.03 a barrel, consolidating after hitting a 26-month high of $91.88 a barrel earlier on.
The energy market was closed on Friday.
Oil prices, which last topped $100 a barrel in October 2008, have strengthened in recent sessions on a variety of U.S. economic data illustrating a pickup in the recovery.
