VIENNA — Oil prices slipped today, with benchmark crude trading just below $40 a barrel after grim U.S. economic news weighed on the market overnight.

The downward trend matched expectations of new downward pressure as traders look to indicators, such as the stock market's performance, for signs of the depth of the global recession.

Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell 13 cents to $39.95 a barrel by midafternoon in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It had settled at $40.08 overnight on a reported drop in personal consumption and total construction spending in the U.S.

Uncertainty about the details of America's $819 billion stimulus proposal, still up for debate in the U.S. Senate, also sidelined investors.

Oil prices have fallen about 72 percent since peaking at $147.27 a barrel in mid July as a financial crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage sector mushroomed into the worst world economic slowdown in decades.