Oil edges up amid brutal week of losses, markets await US jobs data
Investing.com — Crude prices edged higher on Friday amid deep weekly losses left by one of the oil market’s worst tumbles for the year.
With September US jobs data, due later on Friday, being the final major development for this week awaited by markets, some support emerged for oil trading at closer to $80 per barrel than the mid-$95 levels of last month.
“After the heavy move down on the week, it won’t be unusual to see a little recovery though the momentum for oil is still decidedly down,” said John Kilduff, partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital. “Also, some speculative bids are likely to come in ahead of the jobs data.”
Wall Street economists tracked by Investing.com predicted that some 170,000 new non-farm payrolls were created last week versus August’s 187,000. The Federal Reserve will be closing watching the jobs report for ideas on what to do with interest rates at its forthcoming policy meeting in November.
The central bank has maintained projections that it will likely need a quarter point hike in either November or December, although Chairman Jerome Powell and his retinue of policy makers say their final decision will be guided more by inflation data and other economic data.
On the oil front, New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude for delivery in November was up 41 cents, or 0.5%, to $82.72 per barrel by 09:48 (09:48 Eastern US) in Singapore trading.
For the week though, the U.S. crude benchmark was down 9%, heading for its sharpest weekly loss since April, after a five-week low of $82.16.
London-traded Brent for the most-active December contract was up 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $84.41.
For the week, the global crude benchmark was down more than 11%, on course to its sharpest weekly
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