Snapping A Five-Week Streak
Crude-oil prices fell sharply
by midday today
as investors took profits ahead of the weekend and as Israel wrapped up its
operations in the Middl East, giving hope for coming calm in the region. By the
end of the trading session, crude oil started to pick up some steam to close
positive.
June crude oil
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to $26.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. June unleaded
gasoline
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by the end of the session it was in positive territory, closing up .42 to 66.38 cents a gallon.
June natural gas
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to $3.43 per million BTUs.
Blue-chip stocks advanced Friday but other major indexes finished flat, as
investors grappled with a mixed bag of earnings reports and warnings of a
possible terrorist threat against U.S. banks.
The June Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
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77.00 points at 10252, after losing on Thursday.
The June Nasdaq 100 futures
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inched up 1.50 to 1389.
The June S&P 500 futures
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3.70 to 1126.70. Lewis Borsellino summed the not-very-exciting action up in his
“Borsellino’s S&Ps PM”.
The week ended positive, but it was a really non-active week. The Dow
industrials ended the week up 0.7%, snapping a four-week string of weekly
declines. The Nasdaq Composite rose 2.3% from last Friday’s close, ending a
five-week losing streak.
The grains were mixed today. Soybean
prices rose on the Chicago Board of Trade, rebounding from the previous
session’s losses. Soybeans buyers were encouraged by news that farmers in
Argentina have extended a planned nationwide strike against the government’s
economic policy, which would help U.S. exports. This helped soybeans for July
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1 cent to $1.97 1/4a bushel.
In the metals today, three variables pushed gold back down in price below the
$305 an ounce level. They were, pre-weekend profit taking, long liquidation
and a firmer U.S. dollar. Comex June gold futures
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down 2.20 back to a $303 per ounce. May silver
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quietly held up at $4.503, while May copper
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close at 73.29 a pound.