Portfolio

Commodities: Crude cruises higher on US jobs data

Date: Monday 06 Feb 2012

Crude oil futures tapped into a high of $98.03 on Friday as investors cheered encouraging US economic data while the weaker dollar also triggered some interest.

Crude for March delivery rose $1.48 to settle at $97.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Over the week crude prices settled 1.7% lower.

On the ICE Exchange March Brent crude settled at a three-month high of $114.71 a barrel on Friday and gained 2.8% over the week after an upbeat US jobs report.

On Thursday, the Department of Labor said the number of initial applications for unemployment benefits for the week to 29 January fell by 12,000 to 367,000. The data boosted hopes of stronger demand in the world's biggest oil consuming nation.

Hopes of further progress in European talks to resolve its debt problems also spurred some interest while Wednesday’s Chinese manufacturing data soothed fears of deteriorating demand from the world's second largest economy. The official PMI index for January rose to 50.5 from 50.3 the previous month. A figure above 50 indicates an expansion and a figure below indicates a contractions.

A separate HSBC gauge of manufacturing activity in China stood at 48.8.

Among precious metals gold fell nearly $20 an ounce on Friday as the better than expected US jobs data curbed safe haven interest.

Gold for April delivery settled 1.1% lower at $1,740.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Over the week gold prices rose 0.5%.

Silver for March delivery lost 43 cents to settle at $33.75 an ounce while copper for March rose 12 cents to settle at $3.90 per pound.

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