Oil dropped to its lowest level in almost a fortnight on Thursday, though the fall was mitigated somewhat by better-than-expected jobless data.

June delivery for the black stuff ended the day down 2.6%, or $2.68, at $102.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Initial weekly unemployment claims fell by 27,000 last week, to reach 365,000, a one month low. The consensus estimate had been for claims of 372.000. The previous month´s reading was revised up by 4,000, to 392,000.

Elsewhere, the ISM (Institute for Supply Management) services sector purchasing managers´ index for the month of April surprised on the downside. The reading came in at 53.5, down from March´s reading of 56.0 (Consensus: 55.5).

Heating oil and unleaded gas were also taking a hit, but natural gas bucked the trend to jump 3.86% to $2.34 per million British thermal units. The rise came on the back of a report from the Energy Information Administration, which revealed an increase in the commodity of 28bn cubic feet for the week ended April 27th, which fell short of expectations of 30bn cubic feet.

In metals gold was down having lost 1.16%, or $19.20 to settle at $1,634.80 per troy ounce on the June contract.

Likewise, silver was down 2.07% at $30.01 on the July contract, platinum dropped 2.02% to $1,536.3 on the October contract, and copper was down 1.35% to $3.74 per pound, also on the July contract.

NR

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