Oil follows stock markets, falls below $65 in Asia

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices fell below $65 a barrel Thursday in Asia as renewed concerns about the severity of a global economic slowdown triggered an exodus from stocks and commodities.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery was down 83 cents to $64.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. Oil prices have fallen by about 56 percent since peaking at $147.27 a barrel in mid-July.

Stocks fell throughout Asia on Thursday, led by Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average, down 5.4 percent. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index dropped 6.5 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slid 6.4 percent.

Asian markets followed a 5 percent plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average Wednesday, a day after Democrat Barrack Obama was elected as the next U.S. president.

Further proof of the scale of the downturn in the world's largest economy came with news that the U.S. services sector, the largest component of the country's gross domestic product, contracted sharply in October as new orders and employment fell.

"The overriding factor is still the gloom in the global economy," said Gerard Rigby, energy analyst with Fuel First consulting in Sydney. "Oil took sentiment straight from the stock market."

Oil prices overnight fell $5.23 to settle at $65.30 on news of rising U.S. gasoline inventories.