After four weeks of increases, the price of crude oil flattened this week, trading at around $71 a barrel, according to Bloomberg News.

Led by rising oil prices, stocks lifted 75 points in early June, with energy and financial companies posting the largest gains. The markets also rallied after data released in early June showed that the number of workers claiming unemployment benefits dropped for the first time this year.

Though most economic indicators are pointing upward, the demand for petroleum in the United States dropped 6 percent in the past four weeks. But traders are buying crude and other commodities as protection against possible inflation and a weaker dollar, said the Associated Press.

Crude oil prices have risen 60 percent this year and reached a seven-month high of $73.23 on June 11, Bloomberg said.

President Barack Obama was set to sign into law his $787 billion economic stimulus package on Feb. 17 in Denver, emerging with a document bruised but alive after weeks of partisan fighting.

Republican lawmakers fiercely opposed the plan, while some Democrats joined the chorus, saying it didn’t go far enough.

It advanced earlier in the month after squeaking by in a procedural vote in the Senate with mostly Democratic support. But then business groups and GOP officials began seeking broader Republican backing, USA Today said in a story in its Feb. 9 editions. Key support appeared to come from GOP governors eager for federal dollars to help plug enormous state budget gaps.

To the administration, the plan perhaps couldn’t come together fast enough. Economic indicators continued to slide and Wall Street did little more than lurch day to day. In the week before the expected signing, the Dow shed 5.2%.

Here’s what’s inside the package, according to USA Today:

• $1 trillion from the Federal Reserve to buy bonds and other assets to boost consumer loans.
• $500 billion to $1 trillion from the government and private investors to buy distressed securities from financial institutions.
• $545 billion in spending, $293 billion in tax cuts in the Senate stimulus which was later reconciled with the $820 billion House version.
• $50 billion from the government to stem mortgage foreclosures.