Oil Tumbles, Yen Rallies on Japan Quake; Stocks in U.S. Rise
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Oil fell, helping reverse a slide in global stocks, as crude demand weakened after Japan’s worst earthquake on record forced refineries to close. The yen gained as investors bought the domestic currency as a haven.
Oil slumped 1.5 percent to $101.16 a barrel at 4 p.m. in New York and earlier fell 3.6 percent for its biggest drop since November. The MSCI World Index erased a loss of as much as 0.5 percent and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 0.7 percent to 1,304.28 as higher-than-estimated profit forecasts from Steel Dynamics Inc. and Pall Corp. lifted commodity and industrial shares. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average slid 1.7 percent. The yen rose 1.3 percent versus the dollar, the most since August.