No worry about Wilma

[notiCIas]

No worry about Wilma

Hurricane's miss of oil facilities along Gulf Coast sends oil lower and stock futures higher.

October 24, 2005: 8:03 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks could get a lift Monday from falling oil prices after Hurricane Wilma missed the oil facilities along the Gulf Coast.

U.S. stock futures were slightly higher, pointing to a higher opening for stocks.

Oil prices were lower once again after a sell-off last week when forecasts started to show Wilma hitting Florida rather than oil platforms and refineries further west along the Gulf Coast. The eye of the storm came ashore near Naples, Fla., before dawn Monday, following a similar course as 2004's Hurricane Charley. (Click here for CNN.com's coverage of Hurricane Wilma.)

The December light crude futures contract for NYMEX lost 96 cents to $59.67 a barrel in electronic trading, while the December contract for Brent crude fell 84 cents to $57.64.

Fadel Gheit, oil analyst at Oppenheimer, said that even though it was apparent Friday that Wilma posed little threat to oil facilities and prices, the final path of the course fed the recent sell-off in oil prices.

"People are saying the commodity follows the stocks, and the commodity did not drop by 20 percent the last four weeks the way oil stocks have, so there might be some selling yet to go," he said. "Historically the month of October also has been the weakest month for energy prices. And traders will take any excuse to spike the price up or down."

Major markets in Asia closed slightly lower Monday. Major European markets were higher in early trading.

Treasury prices were higher, cutting the yield on the 10-year note to 4.39 percent from the 4.42 percent level late Friday. The dollar lost ground versus the yen but gained on the euro.

Travel, hotels and real-estate services company Cendant (Research) announced early Monday it would break itself up into four companies. It also cut its earnings forecasts for the fourth quarter and for 2006 and warned it would miss the consensus third quarter forecast when it releases a full report after the market close Monday