Oil dropped below $40 a barrel in New York for the first time since August as producers’ output swelled global inventories to a record. U.S. crude stockpiles climbed to 487.3 million barrels last week, the highest for this time of year since 1930, government data show. Oil inventories have expanded to almost 3 billion barrels because of growing output in OPEC and elsewhere, the International Energy Agency said in a report on Friday. Crude has dropped by almost half in the past year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped above its collective quota and Russian output rose to a post-Soviet high, ... (full story)