Crude gains for first time in six sessions

Prices rise on demand prospects following a positive job report

Crude prices ended higher for first time in six sessions on Friday, 03 February 2012 at Nymex. Prices ended higher on higher demand prospects following better than expected economic data at Wall Street. Higher dollar limited gains for crude.

Light and sweet crude for March delivery rose $1.48 (1.5%) to $97.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday. Prices rose to a high of $98.03 during intra day trading. Prices fell 1.7% for the week. Prices fell 0.4% for the month of January.



In the currency market on Friday, the Dollar Index, which weighs the strength of dollar against basket of six other currencies rose by almost 0.4%.

Among economic data expected for the day, a tepid tone to premarket trade turned decidedly positive on Friday, in response to news that nonfarm payrolls jumped in January by 243,000 and that private payrolls climbed by 257,000. Market had expected, on average, respective increases of 155,000 and 168,000. Moreover, the headline unemployment rate fell to 8.3% from 8.5%, which is where it had been widely expected to remain.

Buying interest among equities was further bolstered by the latest ISM Service Index. It improved to 56.8 in January from 52.6 in the prior month. Market had expected a more modest improvement to 53.1.

In the latest weekly inventory report, the EIA reported during the week that crude inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels in the week ended 27 January 2012. Market was expecting a rise by 3 million barrels. The EIA also said gasoline inventories rose 3 million barrels, and supplies of distillates declined by 100,000 barrels. Market had expected distillate supplies to be down 1.2 million barrels and gasoline stocks to rise 1 million barrels.

March gasoline futures climbed nearly 5 cents, or 1.6%, to $2.91 a gallon, losing about 2 cents for the week. March heating oil rose 6 cents, or 2%, to $3.11 a gallon on Friday to score a gain of about 4 cents from a week ago.

March natural gas dropped 5.5 cents, or 2.2%, to end at $2.50 per million British thermal units. For the week, prices dropped 6.7%.