In the energy market, crude oil for August delivery rose 27 cents from Wednesday to close at $60.41/barrel. August reformulated gasoline gained more than 3 cents to finish at $1.6638/gallon.

As evidence of how screwed up things are out there, crude apparently got a boost from the Labor Department’s report mentioned above. So more than half a million new people filing for unemployment in a week is good news?

“The jobs data and the dollar are helping oil today,” said Phil Flynn, vice president at futures trading and research firm PFG BEST Research. “But weak demand concerns are rising.”

Meanwhile, crude inventories at Cushing, Okla. – the delivery point for crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange – jumped to 30.2 million barrels last week, up 5.6% and adding pressure to futures prices.

Also on the energy front, U.S. natural gas inventories rose 75 billion cubic feet in the week ended July 3rd to reach 2,796 billion cubic feet, the Energy Information Administration reported yesterday. Analysts at IHS Global Insight had expected an increase of 71 billion cubic feet.

At the current level, inventories were 601 billion cubic feet higher than last year at this time and 452 billion cubic feet above the five-year average.

Source: Crude Oil Gains

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