By Christopher Alessi 

Oil prices edged lower Monday as U.S. stocks declined and market participants anticipated another build in crude inventories.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery declined 28 cents, or 0.4%, to $62.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, fell 16 cents, or 0.2%, to $66.05 a barrel.

With little fundamental news in the oil market, prices took direction from stocks and currencies, analysts said.

"US equities...were hit with a strong round of selling resulting in downside pressure on oil prices. On the other hand, the US dollar index was lower offsetting what could have been a much stronger round of selling in the oil pits," said Dominick Chirichella, an analyst at the Energy Management Institute, in a Monday note.

Major U.S. stock indexes closed down more than 1% on Monday. The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the dollar against a basket of other currencies, declined 0.2%.

However, oil prices held on to most of the gains made at the end of last week.

"It's a counter-reaction to the Friday spike that we saw," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

Oil prices closed up more than 1.5% Friday on the back of perceived geopolitical risks to global supply and a rosier demand outlook from the International Energy Agency.

"The short-term risk is a move to the upside," Mr. Hansen said of crude prices. He cited ongoing supply disruptions in Venezuela, as well as President Donald Trump's decision last week to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Analysts have said Mr. Tillerson's ouster could set the stage for Mr. Trump to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran, frustrating its oil exports.

The IEA last week raised its global oil demand forecast, predicting the world's appetite for crude would increase by 1.5 million barrels a day to reach 99.3 million barrels a day in 2018. That uptick could offset a surge in U.S. shale production and keep the market in balance, the agency said.

Also Friday, Baker Hughes said the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. had risen by four in the latest reporting week. The oil rig count, typically viewed as a proxy for activity in the sector, has mainly been on the rise since June 2016.

Oil market observers this week are looking ahead to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on crude inventory levels.

Gasoline futures fell 0.2% to $1.9418 a gallon and diesel futures rose 0.2% to $1.9156 a gallon.

Stephanie Yang contributed to this article.

Write to Christopher Alessi at christopher.alessi@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 19, 2018 17:23 ET (21:23 GMT)