Crude Steady Amid Firm Dollar

(RTTNews) - After leveling off from its 2-month high in the previous week, the price of crude oil was ticking higher Monday morning, with traders awaiting fresh triggers.

Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for February delivery, added $0.48 to $94.44 a barrel. Last week, crude retreated from its 2-month high, losing 6 percent, even after report revealed larger-than-expected drop in U.S. crude inventories.

Last Friday, data from the EIA reveled that US crude oil inventories dipped 7 million barrels, and gasoline stocks added 0.80 million barrels in the weekended December 27. Analyst expected crude oil inventories to fall by only 2.20 million barrels last week.

This morning the U.S. dollar was hovering near its one-month high versus the euro and the Swiss franc, while trading around a 2-week high versus sterling and a 5-year high against the yen.

In economic news from the euro zone, German private sector growth slowed more than estimated initially in December, detailed results of a survey by Markit Economics showed. The headline composite output index, that measures combined performance of the country's manufacturing and services industries, fell to 55 in December from 55.4 in November.

Euro zone investor confidence improved sharply in January to the highest since April 2011, a monthly survey by the think tank Sentix showed. The sentiment index rose by 3.9 points to 11.9 in January. In Germany, investor sentiment rose to 32.4 in January from 32.1 a month ago.

Meanwhile, euro zone's private sector growth accelerated as estimated in December, supported by strong performance by the manufacturing sector, final data released by Markit Economics revealed. The seasonally adjusted composite output index, which measures performance of manufacturing and service sectors, rose to a three-month high of 52.1 in December from 51.7 in November. The outcome matched the flash estimates

From the U.S, the Commerce Department will release its factory orders report for November at 10 am ET. Economists expect factory orders to have increased by 1.6 percent month-over-month following a 0.9 percent drop in October.

Simultaneously. the Institute for Supply Management is due to release the results of its non-manufacturing survey for December. The consensus estimates call for an improvement in the index to 54.8 in the month from 53.9 in November.

During this week focus will be on ADP's private sector employment report for December, the weekly jobless claims data and the Labor Department's monthly non-farm payrolls report for December. These apart, the Commerce Department's factory orders report for November, the results of the Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing survey for December and the Commerce Department's trade balance report for November will be under traders' radar

Also, focus will be on the crude oil inventories data from the API, due out Tuesday after the market hours, and the EIA due out the subsequent day.