Heating Oil Leads Rally

Heating oil prices led a rally Monday in petroleum futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Trading volume was light to moderate, as markets in Europe were closed for a banking holiday.

Part of the buying was coming from technical factors such as trends on price charts, as prices had advanced Friday, said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst with Rudolf Wolff Commodities.

Beutel noted also that recent statistics from the American Petroleum Institute showed that heating oil inventories were 10.4% lower than a year ago and 15.6% lower than the average for the past three years.

Cattle futures were mostly lower on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange despite a report Friday that cattle inventories were lower than expected.

Analysts said the report, which was released by the Agriculture Department after the close of trading Friday, was likely to prompt a rally, but, after an initial flurry of buying when trading opened, prices retreated and continued drifting lower for the rest of the session.