This should read 8%.
Futures Movers
May 5, 2011, 12:08 p.m. EDT
Oil slides 5% on demand fears, metals selloff
Natural gas drops more than 4% after inventories report
By Claudia Assis and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) â Crude-oil futures fell Thursday on another sign of a poor job market and a selloff in precious metals, with prices still reeling from higher-than-expected U.S. inventories and economic data that have rekindled concerns of slowing growth and lower demand for oil.
Stocks drop on weak data, earnings
Stocks fall, pressured by disappointing economic data, weaker commodity prices and lackluster earnings reports.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery (NEW:CLM11) dropped $5.86, or 5.3%, to $103.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil traded as low as $101.08 a barrel, a 7.5% drop from Wednesdayâs settlement and the biggest intraday percentage drop since May 2010.
The losses came on top of a decline of $1.81, or 1.6%, in floor trading Wednesday.
Natural-gas futures also added to losses after a weekly inventories report showed a higher-than-expected increase in supplies.
Other commodities traded lower, with silver futures down nearly 7%, adding to steep losses since the beginning of the week.
âIt all started with the precious metals earlier,â said James Cordier, a portfolio manager at Optionsellers.com in Florida. âOil is down because everyone is heading for the doorsâ to unwind their short dollar, long commodities position, he added.
The weak jobs report added fuel to the fire with investors again worrying about a double-dip recession, Cordier said. âHere we are supposedly at the height of the recovery and not only we canât create jobs, we are losing jobs.â
The Labor Department reported Thursday applications for unemployment benefits jumped to 474,000 in the week ended April 30, their highest level since August.
Economists had expected claims to decline to 412,000. Read more about the jobless-benefits surge.
U.S. businessesâ productivity rose at a slower rate in the first quarter, while hourly wages adjusted for inflation saw the biggest drop in three years, according to a separate Labor Department report earlier Thursday. Read more about U.S. productivity.
On Wednesday, investors grappled with a slowing services sector in the U.S. and weak purchasing managers survey in the U.K., in addition to the higher levels of U.S crude inventories.
âEven excluding the impact of the Japanese earthquake from the data, manufacturing growth rates have fallen substantially from the very strong levels seen earlier in the year,â analysts at J.P. Morgan said in a report Thursday. âVery strong output growth over the past six months has resulted in a build-up in business inventories, as final goods expenditures have not kept pace. Rectifying this imbalance necessitates a slower, but still increasing pace of activity to rebalance the inventory picture.â
A rise for the dollar contributed to pressures on price. The dollar index (BOARD-DXY) , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of six global currencies, rose to 73.851 from 73.095 in late North American trading.
June natural-gas futures (NEW:NGM11) slipped 21 cents, or 4.7%, to $4.36 per million British thermal units.
The Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 72 billion cubic feet to storage facilities of the product in the week ended April 29.
Analysts polled by Platts had expected an increase in supplies between 64 and 68 billion cubic feet.
Talk for yourself, bud!
