Crude snaps three day winning streak

Prices recover from intra day low levels

Crude-oil futures settled modestly lower on Friday, 01 July 2011 at Nymex snapping a three-day winning streak but coming off the day's lows on a surprise rise for a key gauge of U.S. manufacturing activity. In addition to profit-taking, oil was feeling the pinch of a stronger dollar, even as the U.S. unit moderated its gains.

Oil for August delivery declined 48 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $94.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It had earlier traded as low as $93.45 a barrel, hit by weak manufacturing data in China and in the U.K. Crude registered 4.2% gains on a weekly basis.



China's official Purchasing Managers' Index slipped to 50.9 in June from 52.0 in May, just above the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction, according to data released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and National Bureau of Statistics.

At Wall Street, once trade opened and participants got their hands on the latest domestic manufacturing data, the mood among traders improved markedly. The ISM Manufacturing Index improved to 55.3 for June. It had actually been widely expected to fall to 51.1. The report completely overshadowed the final June reading on consumer sentiment and an unexpected slip in construction spending during May.

Separately, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey worsened in June, falling to a reading of 71.5 from 74.3 in May. Also, U.S. construction spending fell 0.6% in May from a revised 0.6% drop in April.

Gasoline bucked the downward trend, with the August contract settling 0.1% higher at $2.97 a gallon.