MW: Oil drops, gold wavers after jobless claims rise
By Laura Mandaro
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures turned lower while gold futures briefly dipped into the red Thursday after a report on U.S. weekly jobless claims showed a rise over 400,000 in the latest week. Oil for January delivery CL2F -0.29% , trading at $100.51 a barrel before the data, fell 33 cents to $100.30 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold for February delivery CL2G -0.30% , the most liquid contract, was up 10 cents, or 0.1%, at $1,750.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the Nymex. Stock-index futures fell after the Labor Department said new applications for unemployment benefits rose by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 402,000. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected 393,000.
