Oil price rally sends Wall St higher
Posted
An overnight rally in oil prices boosted the US energy sector, sending Wall Street higher, and breaking a seven-day losing streak for US markets.
Crude prices jumped more than 3 per cent, representing their first rise in six days.
In economic news, the US private sector added 179,000 jobs in July, beating analysts’ estimates.
On average, they were expecting to see the creation of 170,000 new private sector jobs in the month.
The ADP National Employment Report comes ahead of the official non-farm payrolls report, due out in the US on Friday.
Overall, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.23 per cent to 18,355.
The S&P 500 Index gained 0.31 per cent to 2,163 and the Nasdaq closed up 0.43 per cent to 5,159.
It was a mixed finish in Europe — London’s FTSE 100 Index lost 0.17 per cent to 6,634.
The local market is expected to follow Wall Street higher, and at 6:45am AEST the ASX SPI 200 was up 0.5 per cent to 5,444.
At the same time, the Australian dollar was buying 75.85 US cents, having lost value overnight.
On the cross rates it was worth 68.03 euro cents, 56.94 British pence, 76.81 Japanese yen and $NZ1.05.
West Texas Crude oil had risen to $US40.75 a barrel, the price of a barrel of Tapis was also higher at $US42.24 and spot gold had fallen to $US1,358.18 an ounce.
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