Natural gas reverts to losses after smaller-than-expected stockpile increase By Claudia Assis and Deborah Levine, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures pared losses Thursday after a report showed the number of Americans applying for initial unemployment benefits climbed in the latest week, while economists had been expecting a decline. Crude-oil futures for September delivery fell 38 cents, or 0.5%, to $82.07 a barrel. Natural-gas futures reverted to losses despite a government report showing a smaller-than-expected increase in inventories for the week ended July 30. Natural gas for September delivery retreated 11 cents, or 2.3%, to $4.63 per million British thermal units. The Energy Information Administration reported an injection of 29 billion cubic feet to natural gas in storage. Analysts polled by Platts had expected an increase of 32 to 36 billion cubic feet. Meanwhile, jobless claims rose by 19,000 to 479,000, the highest level since early April, according to the Labor Department. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected state claims to drop to 453,000 in the week ended July 31. Read about jobless claims. Crude futures were lower in earlier trading as a stronger dollar and a surprise build in U.S. gasoline inventories reported Wednesday outweighed the positive sentiment generated by rising equity markets. The dollar index (DXY 80.93, +0.04, +0.04%) , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of six other currencies, rose 0.1% to 80.96. Oil edged down Wednesday, ending a four-day winning streak. See Wednesday's oil report. "While macroeconomic concerns about the path of global recovery have, by no means, disappeared, they have, nonetheless, faded slightly into the background, with fundamentals returning to the fore," said strategists at Barclays Capital, referring to inventories.

Source