Forex Top Story
11/6/2009 4:06 PM ET
(RTTNews) -
Crude oil dropped on Friday morning as discouraging jobs data raised energy demand concerns. Prices are down for a second straight day to pull further below $80.
Light sweet crude for December moved to $77.43, down $2.19 on the session. Prices hit as low as $76.71 after earlier reaching as high as $80.34.
Prices finished a choppy week up 44 cents. Oil hit as high as $81.06 before dropping on demand worries.
The Labor Department reported the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October from an unrevised 9.8 percent in September. The number had been expected to see a more modest increase to 9.9 percent. The report showed also non-farm payroll employment fell by 190,000 jobs in October following a revised decrease of 219,000 jobs in September.
Later in the morning, a Commerce Department report showed that wholesale inventories fell 0.9 percent in September following an unrevised 1.3 percent decrease in August. Economists had been expecting inventories to decrease by about 1.0 percent.
On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration data showed crude oil inventories decreased by 4.0 million barrels compared to the previous week. Experts had forecast an increase of 1.3 million barrels.
by RTT Staff Writer
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