The price of crude oil was moving lower Friday morning, with the US dollar trading firm versus a basket of currencies ahead of today's macroeconomic data.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for October delivery, shed $1.03 to $107.57 a barrel. Yesterday, oil gained nearly 1 percent as demand growth outlook improved and supply concerns surfaced after a report from the International Energy Agency indicated drop in OPEC crude oil supplies in August due to the Libyan crisis. Libya's output fell almost 50 percent to an average of 550,000 barrels in August from 1 million barrels in July, the IEA said in a report Thursday.
This morning the U.S. dollar was lingering near its 2-week low versus the euro and the Swiss franc. The buck was trading around its 7-month low against sterling, while flat against the yen.
In economic news, the pace of decline in the number of employed persons in euro area eased in the second quarter, according to the latest data released by Eurostat. Employment fell 0.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 145 million in the second quarter, slower than a 0.4 percent drop recorded in the first quarter. On an annual basis, employment fell 1 percent, at the same pace as in the previous quarter.
Elsewhere, production in the British construction sector increased in July after falling in the previous month as the volumes of both new work and maintenance increased, data released by the Office for National Statistics showed. The volume of output in the construction sector grew a seasonally adjusted 2.2 percent sequentially in July, recovering from the the 1.1 percent decrease recorded in June.
From the U.S., the Commerce Department will release its report on retail sales for the month of August at 8.30 a.m ET. Economists expect the sales to edge up 0.40 percent from the lat month's 0.20 percent.
