Crude oil surges to above $108 per barrel

NEW YORK – Crude oil surged to record levels today as investors soured on the stock market turned to futures trading, according to Bloomberg News.
When floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange trading closed today at 2:30 p.m., crude oil futures stood at $108.21 per barrel – the highest since trading began in 1983, Bloomberg said – while crude oil for April delivery ended the day up $2.77, or 2.6 percent, to $107.92 per barrel. (Figures are not adjusted for inflation.)
“Momentum – coupled with sufficient fundamental underpinnings, such as the Chinese oil import data for February – keeps propelling us,” John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York, told Bloomberg News. “The grab for hard assets is on, due to the lack of confidence in the rest of the markets at the moment.”
Over the past year, oil prices in New York have surged 80 percent as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes have declined. And the Commodities Futures Trading Commission reports that, in the week ended March 4, hedge-fund managers and other large investors increased their positions in oil, betting those prices will continue to rise.
“Clearly, the fundamentals don’t matter at this point,” said Chip Hodge, a managing director at MFC Global Investment Management in Boston. “We’ve seen bubbles in other markets over the years, and eventually they end. It’s impossible to see when that will be the case here.”