A mixed bag of data reports left commodities lower on Thursday, weakened by news of jobless claims in the US. Despite US manufacturing expanding, investors were clearly taking few chances ahead of employment figures due out today.

Janurary delivery for oil finished lower, falling 0.16% to settle at $100.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile stock exchange. Falls were also seen for heating oil, natural gas and unleaded gas.

Crucially, oil remained about the key level of $100, having risen above that level for the first time in two weeks on Wednesday.

The ISM manufacturing sector purchasing manager survey results showed that the headline index rose to 52.7 from the previous month's reading of 50.8. The market consensus was looking for a reading of 52.0 points.

However, initial weekly unemployment claims rose by 6,000 last week, to the 402,000 level (Consensus: 390,000). The official US unemployment figures are due out later today.

Meanwhile, gold also ended lower, though it received some support from the lower dollar. Gold lost 0.60%, or $10.5 to settle at $1,739.80 per troy ounce on the Februrary contract, while silver lost 0.14% to $32.76 per troy ounce for March delivery.

Copper was hit by news on China's manufacturing, where it was reported that a purchasing managers' index had fallen from 50.4 in October to 49 in November. The metal lost 1.16% to finish at $3.53 per pound on the March contract, while platinum also fell, dropping 0.23% to end at $1,557.2 per troy ounce on the January contract.

NR

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