Eia Crude Stocks
Eia Crude Stocks
August 2010 European Penny Stock Market
In corporate news, U.K. banking giant Barclays (BCS) reported that its first-half pre-tax profits rose to 3.4 billion pounds, helped by lower impairment charges and gains on its own debt. U.K. insurer Aviva said its first-half operating profit came in at 1.27 billion pounds compared to 1.05 billion pounds last year.
Unilever (UL) reported a second quarter profit of 1.06 billion euros compared to 758 million euros last year, as sales rose 12.4% to 11.75 billion euros. Mining giant Rio Tinto (RTP) said its underlying earnings for the first-half period rose about 125% to $5.77 billion.
Two central bank decisions from the region came along the expected lines. At the end of two-day rate setting meeting, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to retain the interest rate at 0.5%. The current rate is the lowest since the central bank was established in 1694. The decision was in line with economists’ expectations. Policy makers also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at GBP 200 billion. The minutes of the meeting will be released on August 18.
The European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low of 1% for the fifteenth straight month. The decision was in line with economists’ expectations. The last change in the key interest rate was in May 2009, when the bank cut the rate by 25 basis points to the current level of 1%. The bank has lowered the key interest rate by a total of three and a quarter percentage points since early October 2008.
U.S. Economic News
The Labor Department said that first-time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly showed a moderate increase in the week ended July 31st.
Initial jobless claims rose to 479,000 from the previous week’s revised figured of 460,000. The increase came as a surprise to economists, who had expected jobless claims to edge down to 455,000 from the 457,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Currency, Commodity Markets
Crude oil futures are falling $0.53 to $81.94 a barrel after edging down $0.08 to $82.47 a barrel on Wednesday. The modest retreat in the previous session came amid the release of the EIA’s inventory report, which showed that crude oil inventories fell by 2.8 million barrels to 358 million barrels in the week ended July 30th. Inventories of crude oil remained above the upper limit of the average range.
At the same time, gasoline inventories edged up by 0.7 million barrels and were above the upper limit of the average range. Distillate stockpiles rose by 2.2 million barrels, remaining above the upper boundary of the average range. Refinery capacity utilization averaged 91.2% over the four-weeks ended July 30th compared to 90.6% in the previous week.
Gold futures are edging up $2.60 to $1,198.50 an ounce. In the previous session, the precious metal rose $8.40 to $1,195.90 an ounce.
Among currencies, the U.S. dollar is trading at 86.18 yen compared to the 86.2705 yen it fetched at the close of New York trading on Wednesday. Against the euro, the dollar is valued at $1.3184 compared to yesterday’s $1.3162.
Crude prices drop prior to EIA report
