Crude soars on surprisingly strong U.S. jobs report

Investing.com  |  Author 

Published May 03, 2013 12:24PM ET

Investing.com - Oil prices shot up on Friday after data revealed the U.S. economy created far more jobs in April than expected.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light sweet crude futures for delivery in June traded up 1.95% at USD95.82 a barrel on Friday, off from a session high of USD96.00 and up from an earlier session low of USD93.56.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier that the U.S. economy picked up 165,000 nonfarm payrolls in April, up from 138,000 in March, whose figure was revised up from 88,000.

April's figures far outpaced analysts' forecasts for a 145,000 figure.

Also fueling the rally in energy markets, February's figures were revised to 332,000 from 268,000.

The headline unemployment rate ticked down to 7.5% in April from 7.6% in March.

Elsewhere, soft U.S. service-sector data failed to dampen spirits in energy markets.

The Institute for Supply Management reported that its April non-manufacturing index fell to 53.1 in April from 54.4 in March, missing market calls for a 54.0 reading, the slowest pace of expansion since July of last year.

A reading over 50 indicates expansion.

Elsewhere on the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for June delivery were up 1.58% at USD104.47 a barrel, up USD8.65 from its U.S. counterpart.










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