Will we see the bad economy and weak stocks getting the Fed back to aggressive stimulus?

”Crude futures sank closer to an eight-month low Thursday, as rising U.S. oil inventories and doubts about future demand extended a slide already in its third week.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery traded $1.88, or 2.7%, lower at $67.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after declining to $67.55 a barrel in light trading. The contract expires at settlement, and the much more active July contract is down $2.40, or 3.3%, at $70.08 a barrel, having earlier Thursday fallen below $70 a barrel for the first time since February. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded $2.44, or 3.3%, lower at $71.25 a barrel.

‘We just broke $70 now, so I think that July will take the same fate as June did,’ said Tony Rosado, a broker with GA Global Markets in New York.

The value of the June contract was steadily eroded over the last month by a record buildup of inventories at Cushing, Okla., where the physical barrels traded on Nymex are delivered. A week ago, June crude could be bought for nearly $5 a barrel less than July, a discount not seen since February 2009. June futures also experienced an outright plunge of nearly $20 a barrel over the last three weeks.

The July contract is trading at a $1.35 discount to August futures but has lost value after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that Cushing inventories rose an additional 900,000 barrels to 37.9 million barrels in the week ended May 14.

Investor doubts about the strength of euro-zone economies have weighed heavily on the oil market as well as other assets tied to the global recovery, including metals and equities.”