Crude oil advanced 2.9 percent after the Energy Information Administration said supplies fell 9.87 million barrels, crude surged to a 15-month high after U.S. stockpiles tumbled for a second week. WTI’s discount to Brent narrowed to less than $2 for the first time since December 2010. There’s no incentive to hold supplies with the market in backwardation,” said Chip Hodge, who oversees a $9 billion natural-resource bond portfolio as senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. “You are seeing big drops in inventories and that should continue.
GOLD
Gold futures jumped to a one-week high as minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed many officials want to see more signs of employment picking up before they begin slowing the pace of bond purchases. Many members indicated that further improvement in the outlook for the labor market” is needed before tapering the rate of asset buying, according to the record of the Federal Open Market Committee’s June gathering released today. The jobless rate held at 7.6 percent in June. Bullion doubled from the end of 2008 to a record $1,923.70 in September 2011 as record global stimulus boosted the appeal of inflation hedges. The gold market is pleasantly surprised, and is rallying on the minutes,” Tom Power, a senior commodity broker at R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The unemployment number is the key number that the Fed is watching, and with that still above 7.5 percent, investors think that easing is here to stay for some time.