Oil Prices

The gravity-defying price of oil shot through another barrier Monday by briefly touching $103.95 a barrel in New York trading, the highest cost ever for black gold even after adjusting for inflation. Before Monday, the April 1980 price of $38 was the pinnacle, fueled by dramatic Mideast events including the failed rescue of American hostages in Iran. Adjusted for inflation, that $38 is now more than $103.

Crude oil jumped to a new high above $108 a barrel Monday, dragging retail gasoline and diesel prices along for record rides of their own despite ample fuel supplies. Anyone hoping that the surge might have reached its peak is in for a rude awakening. Analysts say that $110 a barrel or higher is possible given that the usual rules of supply and demand aren't driving the oil-price party train. And the Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Gasoline prices continued to set records over the last week, reaching all-time highs across the nation, including California, the Energy Department said Monday. But relief may be on the way, at least temporarily. Also on Monday, oil prices plunged in New York futures trading, pulling back from record levels as investors feared that the financial crisis that forced the sale of Bear Stearns Cos. is a sign of deep economic trouble. If oil prices continue to decline as they did Monday -- falling $4.

Stocks fell for the first time in three days Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke conceded that the U.S. economy could face recession and rising fuel prices snuffed out a rally in retailing stocks. Early in the day, Bernanke told a congressional panel that the economy might contract in the first half of 2008. But he predicted a rebound in the second half of the year. Oil prices shot up on an Energy Department report of an unexpected jump in gasoline demand.

Wall Street extended its losses Wednesday as a rise in oil prices and a profit warning from United Parcel Service raised investors' anxiety about the well-being of the economy. Technology names were among the steepest decliners, with the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index falling more than 1%. The continuing surge in oil prices weighed on transportation stocks and contributed to a pessimistic tone in the market. Crude prices jumped following a government report showing U.S.

With oil and gasoline touching all-time highs again Monday, raging energy-price fever showed no sign of breaking. Before it's over, oil could cost at least $125 a barrel and gasoline more than $4 a gallon in California. Even if oil were to stop its frenzied record-a-day pace, gasoline costs would probably keep rising for several weeks as past oil price increases trickled down to the pump and the summer driving season revved up.

Wall Street ended a choppy session with a moderate advance Wednesday after a better-than-expected profit report from Boeing and a seesaw day in the energy markets. Boeing, one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, reported a 38% jump in first-quarter earnings. The airplane manufacturer's results, along with stronger-than-anticipated forecasts at chip makers Broadcom and Anadigics, appeared to buoy investor sentiment about earnings season.

Wall Street pulled back Monday after Microsoft withdrew its bid for Yahoo and oil prices briefly rose above $120 a barrel to a new record. Microsoft had offered $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo but scrapped the bid late Saturday when the software maker and the Internet provider could not agree on a sale price. The failed negotiation came as a disappointment to Wall Street, as merger-and-acquisition activity tends to signal to the broader market that corporate America is optimistic about the future.

The relentless rise in oil prices caught up with the stock market Wednesday when crude climbed above $123 a barrel and drove the major indexes to their worst day in almost a month. Stocks had for weeks largely shrugged off the oil price surge, in part out of relief that the global financial system had withstood what appeared to have been the worst of the credit crunch. The wake-up shock was the latest record set on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the benchmark grade of U.S.

Only gasoline prices nearing $4 a gallon could accomplish this political feat: bringing together congressional Democrats and Republicans to support a halt to oil deliveries for the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. With fuel costs becoming a crucial election-year issue, members of both parties -- separately -- pitched their ideas Wednesday for bringing down prices.