Oil Prices

The low point in Kimberly Henderson's struggle to keep her family warm came in early January when she was too broke to order an oil delivery and had to buy a 5-gallon container to take to her dealer so they'd have enough fuel to make it through the night. But later that month, with the gauge on her 275-gallon tank again approaching empty, Henderson's fortunes turned around when she got a phone call from a local clergyman: He had just received a donation that would provide her with 50 gallons of heating fuel that day. "I could have cried," said Henderson, a 40-year-old single mother of three who lives in a rental home in downtown Bangor.

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.

At the end of a week filled with dire economic signals and the near collapse of a major Wall Street bank, President Bush on Friday sought to reassure Americans that the right policies were in place and it was only a matter of time before the economy would rebound "better and stronger than before." Stocks plunged as investors seemed to focus more on the liquidity crunch that nearly felled investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. than on the president's calming message. Bush's speech in Manhattan came on the heels of an unlucky confluence of events Thursday: Gold prices reached $1,000 an ounce for the first time in history, oil prices hit a record $110 a barrel, and the dollar fell below 100 Japanese yen for the first time since 1995.

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.