LSE: UPDATE 8-Oil falls 3 pct on U.S. jobs, China data
By Robert Gibbons
NEW YORK, June 1 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell more than 3 percent o n F riday, with Brent crude dropping below $100 a barrel to a near 16-month low as weak U.S. jobs data, poor Chinese manufacturing figures and the euro zone's debt crisis prompted a cross-market selloff.
U.S. job growth stumbled in May and the unemployment rate rose for the first time in 11 months, data from the Labor Department showed, with nonfarm payrolls up only 69,000 jobs last month, the fewest additions in a year.
U.S. manufacturing slowed in May, though a gauge of new orders rose to its highest in over a year, according to the Institute for Supply Management.
The U.S. data came after reports showing China's official Purchasing Managers' Index eased to its weakest reading this year and Germany's manufacturing sector contracted at the fastest pace in almost three years.
Gold bucked the trend and rallied, while industrial feedstock copper fell to a 2012 low. The Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a global benchmark for commodities, lost 1.46 percent after tumbling nearly 11 percent in May, the second-largest monthly decline since 2008.
U.S. equities slumped, with the Dow Industrials turning negative for the year.
'We've had constant worries about Greece, Spain, the euro, poor data from the U.S., and overnight the Chinese data was not positive,' said Tony Machacek, an oil futures broker at Jefferies Bache.
Brent July crude fell $3.50 to $98.37 a barrel by 11:13 a.m. EDT (1513 GMT), having pushed below $100 for the first time since October. Brent's intraday low of $97.70 was the weakest since Feb. 8, 2011.
U.S. July crude was down $3.45 at $83.08 a barrel, having fallen to $82.56, the lowest since October.
'From China to Europe to the U.S., all the data have shown real slowing,' said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.