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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (15375)	8/5/1998 5:51:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116762

FOCUS-Oil shrugs off Iraq to end lower, gold falls 05:26 p.m Aug 05, 1998 Eastern NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices seesawed nervously Wednesday before closing lower as traders doubted that a fresh rebuff by Iraq of United Nations arms inspections would pose any immediate threat to abundant world oil supplies. In other commodity markets, precious metals prices fell back after the stock market recovered from Tuesday's sharp drop. But cotton and coffee prices rose on supply concerns. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil prices finished lower in a late sell-off after trading higher most of the day on jitters about a revival of U.N. tensions with Iraq. Crude for September delivery closed 7 cents lower at $13.68 a barrel after rising as high as $14.15 earlier in the day. The late selling came after Saeed Hasan, Iraq's deputy U.N. representative, said in New York that Iraq's ''oil-for-food'' deal with the U.N. would continue despite this week's flap over U.N. weapons inspections. Under the deal, Iraq is currently exporting an average of 1.8 million barrels of oil a day to raise funds to buy food, medicine and other non-military supplies. Earlier Wednesday, Iraq's parliament voted for an immediate suspension of U.N. arms inspections. This came one day after chief U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler cut short his visit to Baghdad, refusing a demand by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz to declare the U.N. mission accomplished. ''The (oil-for-food) sale has nothing to do with that,'' Hasan said. ''There is no linkage at all.'' Reaction from the Clinton Administration to the latest Iraqi resistance to inspections was muted, leaving no clear indication that U.S. military forces in the Middle East Gulf might prepare a strike against Iraq for noncompliance with the U.N.'s inspection of all Iraqi weapons sites. The lack of any clear threat to Iraq's continued shipments of oil or production base left traders once more eyeing swollen oil supplies. In a weekly report issued late Tuesday, both crude oil stocks and heating oil stocks rose in the week ended July 31, while gasoline stocks fell far less than expected. September heating oil closed 0.47 cent a gallon lower at 35.77 cents and September gasoline 0.35 cent a gallon lower at 41.94 cents. At the COMEX in New York, gold and silver prices fell back as investors' nerves steadied. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 59 points higher at 8,547, recovering from an earlier 100-point loss in the second highest volume on record. Both gold and silver had closed firm Tuesday as the Dow fell 299 points in its biggest percentage loss of the year. But Wednesday, gold for December delivery ended 70 cents lower at $291.80 an ounce and September silver was down 4.8 cents at $5.405. ''I think gold prices clearly benefited from the sharp fall in the U.S. stock market yesterday, but technical trading strategies being worked by hedge funds to short gold have overshadowed investor demand for the past year,'' said Ted Kempf, an analyst with industry consultant CPM Group. ''Equities may need to fall further before investors see the benefit of diversifying into gold,'' he said. At the Coffee Sugar and Cocoa Exchange, coffee prices rose to seven-week highs as traders eyed shrinking physical coffee stocks in warehouses and decided roasters were game to bid higher to secure nearby supplies. September coffee rose 1.50 cent a pound at 130.50 cents. ''There was a draw in exchange coffee stocks in the past two days, but stocks are still much higher than in the past year and the weather is fine and the crop big in Brazil,'' said Walter Spilka, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney. October cotton at the New York Cotton Exchange closed 1.60 cents a pound higher at 72.05 cents as trade estimates circulated that this year's drought-hit cotton crop would fall to 14.5 million bales or lower, from 19 million last year. Each bale contains 480 pounds of raw cotton. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.