By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
?LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Benchmark U.S. oil futures clicked lower in electronic trading early Friday as the dollar made mild gains ahead of the October jobs report.
Crude oil for December CLZ2 -0.51% delivery fell 0.3%, or 26 cents, to $86.83 a gallon during East Asian trading hours, trimming the contract’s 1% gain Thursday in the regular New York Mercantile Exchange session.
The previous gains had come on the back of a surprise drop in crude supplies and better-than-expected U.S. economic data. Signs of economic improvement can often boost oil prices, as the market prices in stronger demand for crude. Read: Oil above $87 after inventory, economic data.
But Thursday’s advance also came despite gains for the U.S. dollar, which can frequently weigh on dollar-denominated crude prices, as it makes the commodity more expensive for holders of other currencies.
In early Friday trade, the dollar was adding to its Thursday gains, with the ICE dollar index DXY +0.28% rising to 80.079 from 80.052 around the time of the Nymex close Thursday.
While this may have helped push oil marginally lower Friday, the currency factors could well take a back seat to the closely watched U.S. nonfarm-payrolls report, due out at 8:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern.
A MarketWatch survey of economists suggested that the report would show a gain of 120,000 in October, while the unemployment rate would rise to 7.9% from 7.8%. Read: U.S. jobless rate is presidential concern.
Other energy-product futures saw milder losses in early Friday action.
December natural-gas futures NGZ12 -0.41% lost a penny, or 0.2%, to trade at $3.69 per million British thermal units.
December heating oil HOZ2 -0.47% lost a cent, or 0.3%, to $3.02 a gallon, and December gasoline RBZ2 -0.22% slipped a fraction of a cent to remain around $2.63.
Michael Kitchen is Asia editor for MarketWatch and is based in Los Angeles.
