Commodities: Crude lower, clings to gains above $50 a barrel

Crude futures were heading lower on Friday afternoon but both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent managed to cling to prices above the $50 a barrel mark.

At about 14:54 BST, Nymex-quoted WTI was down 0.43% to $50.41 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-listed Brent fell 0.06% to $51.35 a barrel.

Accendo Markets analysts Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft opined earlier that a 2% slide linked to dollar weakness and Russia's Rosneft stating a production capacity increase was possible.

But, as prices did not break the $50 barrier, this implied "investors still have faith that an OPEC production cut will address supply fears," Dulken and Croft said.

SwissQuote noted that WTI had failed to retest the $51.67 resistance level, and added that support was at about $49.15.

"Short-term bearish positions should be loaded up at this level as buying pressures is fading," SwissQuote said in a research note.

Meantime, Comex-priced metals were mixed. Gold was up 0.03% to $1267.9 an ounce and silver fell 0.14% to $17.52 an ounce, while copper eased 0.14% to 209.3 cents a pound.

London Metals Exchange-quoted three-month industrial metals copper, aluminum, zinc and tin were all firmly lower.

Among agricultural futures, Chicago Board of Trade-quoted corn was up 0.21% to 351.75 cents a bushel, while wheat was down 0.24% to 416 cents a bushel.

On ICE, cocoa was down 0.92% to $2692 a MT and cotton No.2 fell 1.56% to 68.71 cents a pound. Live cattle was up 1.22% to 101.35 cents a pound.