Oil hovers above $82 after leaping previous day

SINGAPORE — Oil prices were steady above $82 a barrel Tuesday in Asia, pausing after a leap the previous day fueled by a US dollar drop and surging equity markets. Benchmark crude for May delivery was up 6 cents to $82.23 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract jumped $2.17 to settle at $82.17 on Tuesday. Crude prices have been buoyed by a yearlong rally of global stock markets. Oil traders often look to equity markets as a measure of overall investor sentiment. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent Monday to its highest level since September 2008, and most Asian indexes rose Tuesday. The euro was steady against the dollar Tuesday. "The oil complex has grabbed on to the stock indexes as a proxy for future oil demand," Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report. "As long as a low interest rate policy is nurtured by the Fed, oil values appear poised to go up easier than they go down." In other Nymex trading in April contracts, heating oil fell 0.32 cent to $2.116 a gallon, and gasoline held at $2.26 a gallon. Natural gas was steady at $3.842 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, Brent crude was up 7 cents at $81.24 on the ICE futures exchange. — AP