In the energy market on Monday, crude for July delivery continued its relentless climb, closing at $68.58/barrel, up $2.27. July reformulated gasoline rose 2.9 cents, to $1.9243/gallon.

Crude was up for a sixth straight session, and now sits at its highest level in seven months. Yesterday’s rally came on top of a 30% rise during May, the biggest monthly gain in a decade, as the weaker U.S. dollar and hopes for an economic recovery have bred a gang of optimists.

Many analysts, however, have become increasingly concerned that oil’s recent upswing is overdone.

“What all these surging markets have in common is that their advances are occurring in spite of uninspiring fundamentals,” wrote Edward Meir, of MF Global.

“It seems that for the moment participants are not interested in the bearish dynamics of the market, and instead are pushing values higher on solid technicals and bullish exogenous variables, such as the weaker dollar, firmer equity markets, and improving macro data,” Meir added.

And a PetroChina (NYSE:PTR) official said gasoline and diesel prices in that country are going up by the equivalent of 19 cents a gallon, effective yesterday. The move represents increases of about 6% to 7% over current average gasoline and diesel retail-ceiling benchmarks.

Source: Crude Pushes Higher

Last 5 posts by Doug Casey

• Resource Stock Roundup:Monday, July 27, 2009 - July 27th, 2009
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• Gold Pushes Through $950 - July 27th, 2009