Oil prices were mixed in Asia Monday as traders balanced US stimulus hopes with disappointing Chinese industrial output numbers, analysts said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, shed 26 cents to $96.16 a barrel while Brent North Sea crude for October delivery gained 15 cents to $114.40.
Traders were mulling hopes for fresh US stimulus after a disappointing jobs report as well as data showing Chinese industrial output growth weakening to its slowest pace in more than three years, IG Markets said in a report.
“In Asia today, markets could show some volatility with a mixed bag of US news and reaction along with China’s weak economic data,” the report stated.
US data released Friday showed the economy of the world’s largest oil consumer adding just 96,000 jobs in August as the official number of jobless fell by a quarter of a million people to 12.5 million.
But about 368,000 people gave up searching for jobs and left the labour force, leading to a substantial net rise in the total number of working-age Americans out of work.
In China, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed industrial production increasing 8.9 percent year-on-year last month, the lowest figure since May 2009, in the depths of the global downturn.
China’s economy has seen a marked easing over the past year, expanding 7.6 percent in the second quarter of 2012, the worst performance in three years and the sixth straight quarter of slowing.
Oil prices mixed in Asian trade
