The price of crude oil was ticking lower Friday morning as traders await cues from the Federal Reserve's QE tapering.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for January delivery, eased $0.40 to $97.10 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled almost flat as investors weighed demand growth prospects after a hefty drop in crude oil stockpiles in the U.S., even as gasoline inventories showed a sharp increase.
This morning the U.S. dollar moved up near a weekly high versus the euro and the Swiss franc, while trading near a two-week high against sterling. The buck was extending its seven-month high versus the yen.
In economic news from the euro zone, Germany's wholesale prices declined for a fourth consecutive month in November, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed. The wholesale price index fell 2.2 percent year-on-year in November following a 2.7 percent decline in October. On a monthly basis, prices dropped 0.2 percent in November.
Meanwhile, employment in the euro area stayed unchanged for the second successive quarter in the three months to September, data released by statistical office Eurostat revealed. At the end of the third quarter, the seasonally adjusted number of employed persons in the currency bloc was unchanged from the preceding three-month period. In the second quarter also there was no change in the employment level.
From the U.S., the Labor Department is scheduled to release its producer price inflation report for November at 8:30 am ET. Economists expect producer price index to have edged down 0.1 percent month-over-month, while excluding food and energy, producer prices may have risen 0.1 percent.
