The following is an excerpt from Avi Salzman | September 17, 2012 | Barrons.com |
A sudden hold-onto-your-hats plunge in crude futures has hit stocks, although not quite as badly as the commodity itself.
Crude fell $3 in about a minute around 2 p.m., and it’s not immediately clear why — initial speculation turned to a possible release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but there’s no evidence yet that that’s happening. It also doesn’t look like there’s been a flash crash or other technical issues. Nymex-traded oil had been up about 0.5% and quickly fell about 3%. More recently it was down 2.6% to $96.44 per barrel.
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