Oil hovers abreast $60 as traders eye aggregation results

SINGAPORE – Oil prices hovered aloof aloft $60 a butt Friday in Asia as investors anchored for a bulk of aggregation balance letters abutting anniversary that will accommodate clues on the backbone of awkward demand.

Benchmark awkward for August commitment was bottomward 9 cents at $60.32 a butt by midday Singapore time in cyberbanking trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, the arrangement rose 27 cents to achieve at $60.41.

Oil has bobbed abreast $60 a butt the aftermost two canicule afterwards bottomward from an eight-month intraday aerial of $73.38 on June 30 on broker affair that a assemblage back March wasn't justified by anemic all-around awkward demand.

"All the focus in on demand," said Christoffer Moltke-Leth, arch of sales trading for Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore. "The additional division balance division is activity to be actual important for crude."

"If we see disappointments there, bodies will say we've gone too far, too fast."

Aluminum maker Alcoa Inc., the aboriginal Dow Jones automated boilerplate basic to absolution earnings, appear a narrower-than-expected loss.

Results over the abutting few weeks from bunch accumulation bazaar retailers — such as Colgate Palmolive, PepsiCo, and Johnson & Johnson — will advice investors bigger barometer the backbone of the all-around economy.

"These companies accept a acceptable feel for how appeal is about the world," Moltke-Leth said. "What they say is activity to be important for the near-term angle for oil."

In added Nymex trading, gasoline for August commitment fell 1.13 cents to $1.65 a gallon and heating oil was abiding at $1.53. Natural gas for August commitment jumped 2.2 cents to $3.43 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices fell 9 cents to $61.01 a butt on the ICE Futures exchange.