While Wall Street went through a stock market rally on Tuesday, it fizzled after oil prices plunged, falling $1.82 to reach $24.26 at the end of trading.
West Texas Intermediate crude led the collapse in oil prices as Brent crude in London dropped 49 cents to $32.56. Natural Gas prices rose 18 cents to reach $1.91 per Million Btu.
Energy markets remained volatile as traders looked for signs that Saudi Arabia and Russia may back off their price war and cut back on some of their production. Demand for oil has plummeted due to the weakening economy, and any cutback in production would help prop up its price. A meeting between OPEC, Russia and other producers planned for Monday was pushed back to Thursday.
Oklahoma energy companies experienced losses as well. Chesapeake Energy was down one cent to just about 16 cents a share. ConocoPhillips gained 47 cents and finished the day at $33.27.
Devon Energy shares were down 9 cents and settled at $8.71 for the day. Marathon Oil added 6 cents and finished at $3.68.
ONEOK gained 95 cents and ended Tuesday’s trading at $24.28 while Phillips 66 was up $1.21 to reach $58.63.
SandRidge Energy lost 6 cents a share and finished at 81 cents after announcing the naming of a new company president and the suspension of drilling operations.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 26.13 points to close at 22,653.86, erasing gains after climbing nearly 1,000 points early in the day. The Standard & Poor’s 500 lost 0.2% to end at 2,659.41, after being up as much as 3.5%.
The gains mostly evaporated in late trading after the price of U.S. crude oil slid more than 9%. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 slung onto a 2.5% gain after earlier being up nearly 8%.
