Oil Futures Jump To A New 1 Year High

Crude oil futures jumped to a new 1 year high Thursday, just above 77 dollars a barrel after a sharp drop in U.S. gasoline stocks buoyed the market.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery settled 2.40 dolars, or 3.2%, higher at 77.58 a barrel on the NYMEx, having peaked at an intraday high of 77.97 dollars a barrel. 

Data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Energy showed a sharp 5.2 million barrel drop in gasoline, far from the 700,000-barrel increase analysts surveyed by Dow Jones had expected. Distillate stocks, which include diesel and heating oil, fell 1.1 million barrels against expectations of a 100,000-barrel decline, helping to trim stocks that still remain at their highest levels in over two decades.

The stock draw was the catalyst for oil futures to extend their run past 75 a barrel, a price that had until Wednesday not been breached this year. 

While the market now eyes 80 dollars a barrel as the next barrier for oil to break through.

Apart from oil, the veteran trader, Art Cashin commented today`s economic data on CNBC earlier today:

“If you put things in perspective, initial jobless claims mean people who just got laid off and it’s over 500,000 and it keeps going. At some point, you’re going to have so many people laid off that the claims have to go down because there’s almost nobody left to fire so you have to be careful of looking at that number. It’s still eating away. This is going to be a long, hard slough—this is not going to be a V-shaped recovery.”