Date: Monday 05 Jul 2010
The price of oil fell again on Friday completing a week in which the most actively traded futures contract fell 8.5% to its lowest level in nearly a month.Crude for August delivery dipped 81 cents to $72.14 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The weekly decline was the biggest in almost two months and brought to an end a sequence of three weeks in which the oil price had advanced.
While demand for oil appears to be waning, news emerged that Russia, the world’s biggest oil producer, is cranking out more of the stuff than ever, with June’s production hitting a record high. Production levels remained above 10m barrels a day in Russia for the tenth month on the spin.
The gold price also showed a decline on the week although Friday saw a pick up in the price ahead of the July 4 holiday week-end in the States.
After the yellow stuff had endured its worst day since February on Thursday bargain hunters moved back in, pushing the price of the August futures contract up by a dollar to $1,207.70 an ounce in New York trading.
The market seemed to have difficulty in decoding the US non-farm payrolls data, and sought the haven of gold as an investment while the market sorted itself out.
Non-farm payrolls fell by 125,000 in June, slightly worse than forecast and compared with 431,000 jobs created in May.
Private sector employers added 83,000 new staff, well below forecasts though double the previous month’s 41,000, of which many were only temporary positions.
Unemployment fell to 9.5%, the lowest rate since July last year and down from 9.7% in May.The price of copper continued to retreat. It fell 4 cents on Friday to $2.93 a pound, bringing its loss on the week to 7.5%.
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