LONDON (SHARECAST) - Oil futures prices finished lower despite receiving a boost from the release of the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which showed some members of the committee were in favour of resuming the Fed’s bond buying programme. The minutes showed a clear dissatisfaction with the pace of economic recovery, raising hopes that the Fed will introduce some form of fiscal stimulus sooner rather than later. That was enough to prompt a recovery in the oil price but not enough to prevent the November contract finishing the day in New York down 54 cents at $81.67. Earlier in the day the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had upped its projection for global oil demand for 2010 to 1.1m barrels a day from the previous projection of 1m. Tomorrow will see the release of the American Petroleum Institute’s weekly oil inventories data. Gold also lost ground Tuesday, with the December contract pulling back from its record high to close at $1,346.70 an ounce, down $7.70 on the day, having risen as high as $1,356.30 earlier in the session. An improvement in the value of the US dollar sapped demand for the yellow stuff. Silver also lost some of its lustre, falling from a 30-year high in New York trading, with the December contract finishing 20 cents lower on the day at $23.15 an ounce.

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