Crude Oil Rises as Investors Buy After Five Days of Decline

July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for the first time in six days in New York as investors took the view its biggest weekly drop in eight made the commodity attractive to buy.

Oil climbed as much as 0.6 percent to snap a five-day decline. Crude dropped 8.5 percent in the week ended July 2, the biggest since the week ended May 7. There will be no floor trading on the Nymex today because of the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

“The outlook for growth around the world is certainly not as optimistic as it was a few months ago,” said Toby Hassall, a commodity analyst at CWA Global Markets Pty in Sydney. “There will be the longer-term participants in the market who are viewing this decline in price as a good time to get long.”

Crude oil for August delivery gained as much as 43 cents to $72.57 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $72.26 a barrel at 9:28 a.m. Sydney time. The contract fell 81 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $72.14 on July 2. Prices have declined 8.9 percent since the start of the year.

Oil dropped for a fifth day on July 2 after the Labor Department said payrolls decreased by 125,000 last month as the government cut temporary census workers. The 1.4 percent reduction in May bookings with manufacturers was the biggest since March 2009, the Commerce Department said. Economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected a 0.5 percent drop.

Brent crude oil for August settlement traded at $71.82 a barrel, up 17 cents, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London at 9:27 a.m. Sydney time. The contract fell 69 cents, or 1 percent, to $71.65 on July 2.