Oil Alert: Crude Settles Under $81
NEW YORK (
) -- A week that saw the price of crude leap to $82 -- its highest level since last October - ended on a whimper on Friday, as oil settled lower amid slumping equities and a resurgent dollar.
After hovering above $81 in the morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the front-month contract for benchmark crude settled at $80.50 a barrel, losing 69 cents during the session.
Still, the price has rallied higher by 2.5% since last Friday, fueled mostly by the dollar's 14-month low against the euro earlier in the week and news of a gasoline stockpile drop.
But today, a move to the safe-haven dollar and away from riskier assets appeared to consume the broader markets, as the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
,
S&P 500
, and
Nasdaq
tracked backwards on Friday, sliding 1.1%, 1.2% and 0.5%, respectively.
Oil, which is dollar-denominated and has tended to track inversely with the greenback in recent months, went lower as well.
With earnings season underway, next week will showcase a collage of integrated oil companies. Among them,
Exxon Mobil
(XOM) - Get Exxon Mobil Corporation Report
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,
Chevron
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,
ConocoPhillips
(COP) - Get ConocoPhillips Report
and
Hess
(HES) - Get Hess Corporation Report
each finished lower on Friday, losing 1.2%, 0.8%, 1.2% and 3.9% each.
American depositary receipts for overseas concerns
BP
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and
Royal Dutch Shell
(RDS.A)
also closed in the red, down 2.2% and 1.4%.
Friday brought profit news from oil servicer
Schlumberger
(SLB) - Get Schlumberger NV Report
, which said earnings declined to 65 cents a share in the third quarter compared to $1.25 per share in the year-earlier period.
Though CEO Andrew Gould also added that the
investors sent shares down anyway by $3.40, or nearly 5%, to $65.20 at the closing bell.
-- Written by Sung Moss in New York
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