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West Texas Intermediate crude rose for a fifth day amid speculation that weaker-than-forecast jobs growth may prompt the U.S. Federal Reserve to halt tapering of economic stimulus in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures climbed as much as 0.6% in New York after advancing the most in two months on February 7. Payrolls gained 113K in January, according to the Labor Department. Libyan oil output increased to about 600K barrels a day after protests that shut a pipeline ended, according to Mohamed Elharari, a spokesman for the state-run National Oil Corp. WTI for March delivery gained as much as 58 cents to $100.46 a barrel. The contract rose 2.1% to $99.88 on February 7, the highest since December 27. The volume of all futures traded was about 26% above the 100-day average. Prices gained 2.5% last week.
GOLD
Gold gain for the third day amid the report of The Labor Department said last week hiring in the U.S. rose by 113K in January, fewer than the 180K gain that was the forecasted, and following a 75K increase in the prior month. Unemployment fell to 6.6%, the least since October 2008, from 6.7% in December, according to the Federal Reserve, which last month said it will trim monthly bond buying by $10 billion to $65 billion. A separate report showed 262K Americans were not at work because of bad weather during the month of January, little changed from the same period last year. The yellow metal headed the week at $1267.10 per ounce rising by 0.2% to $1270.00 per ounce.