Post-Us Jobs Report: Oil dives on soaring dollar

NEW YORK: A robust US jobs report sent the dollar soaring, driving a sell-off in the oil market that left the US futures benchmark back below $50 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate for delivery in April slid $1.15 to $49.61 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, ending near its week-ago level. Brent North Sea crude for April, the international benchmark, dropped 75 cents to $59.73 a barrel in London. The February jobs report came in much stronger than expected. The world’s largest economy added several thousand jobs, and the unemployment rate fell two-tenths to 5.5%, the lowest level since May 2008. “The strong job report was a negative for oil, and the reason for that is the dollar index has been on fire ever since this number came up,” said Phil Flynn, at Price Futures Group.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2015.

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