Oil Alert: Crude Moves Higher

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Oh, optimism. Sometimes, one can only sit back and marvel at its effects. Take today, for example, as oil futures moved 3% higher with the help of an improving economic picture.

Light, sweet crude for delivery in October rushed higher by $2.07 to settle at $70.93 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Most reports are attributing the boost in crude to bettering economic news, led chiefly today by a Commerce Department report showing a better-than-expected 2.7% jump in retail sales during August.

Though labor conditions continue to drag on the overall economic landscape, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also signaled the technical death knell for the recession when he said today that the slowdown "is very likely over at this point."

Other economic data that came into view today included wholesale prices, which jumped 1.7% in August, though stripping out energy and food costs showed a narrower 0.2% jump in inflation. Business inventories fell, again, by 1% in July, but that marked a slimmer cut than the 1.4% decline the month before.

The dollar, too, lost some ground against a few majors, as commodities and stocks went higher in the afternoon.

On the stock front, oil majors ended the day mixed by the closing bell. Shares of Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote) lost 51 cents to close at $69.49, while ConocoPhillips(COP Quote) tracked backward by 26 cents to finish at $46.33.

On the other end of the spectrum, Chevron(CVX Quote), Marathon Oil(MRO Quote), Hess(HES Quote) and Murphy Oil(MUR Quote) added 0.8%, 0.8%, 1.9% and 0.7%, respectively.

Oil inventories and demand metrics will be in focus this afternoon and tomorrow morning, as the American Petroleum Institute and the Energy Department are set to release their latest weekly crude supply figures. According to Platts, analysts are expecting a 3 million barrel drop in oil inventories.

-- Written by Sung Moss in New York

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