LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell back below $75 a barrel from year-highs and reversed its sixth straight positive session on Thursday after European shares pared gains and the euro fell on disappointing Q3 earnings reports, traders said.
U.S. crude for November delivery fell 30 cents to $74.88 a barrel by 1144 GMT, after climbing as high as $75.96 earlier in electronic trading, its highest since October 2008.
London Brent crude was down 19 cents at $72.91.
"At this stage the market is dominated by nothing commodity-driven -- just the weaker dollar and earnings season. The fact that we're not holding gains above $75 is a slight cause for concern, but we fully expect it to rise back up above it today," said CMC Markets analyst James Hughes.
European shares pared earlier gains and the euro fell versus the already weak dollar after third-quarter results at Goldman Sachs disappointed some investors.
U.S. crude stocks fell 172,000 barrels last week against expectations of a 700,000 barrel rise, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Wednesday.
"The API overnight was slightly supportive, as there was a bigger-than-expected drawdown on gasoline, but really the market is waiting for confirmation in the DOE stats," said Tony Machacek, a broker at Bache Commodities in London.
Traders will look to weekly jobless claims and U.S. government Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA) inventory data later in the trading session for confirmation that fuel demand in the world's largest economy is rising.
The EIA is due to release its report at 4:00 p.m. BST.
Further support for crude came as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above 10,000 points for the first time in a year on Wednesday, while the dollar slumped to a fresh 14-month low against a basket of currencies.
