By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures fell Friday for a second session, reducing their weekly gains as a rebounding dollar and weaker stock markets continued to weigh on commodities trading.
Crude for December delivery, which expires Friday, fell 82 cents, or 1.1%, to $76.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude had made a three-day winning streak in the first three sessions of the week, and is set to end the week up slightly.
U.S. stocks moved broadly lower to close the week -- a day largely devoid of any key economic or corporate reports.
In currencies trading, the dollar rose against most of its major rivals, with the dollar index (DXY 75.72, +0.43, +0.57%) up 0.6% to 75.728.
"For the past several months, there has been a clearly defined relationship between crude oil and the direction of stocks and the dollar," said Brian Niemiec, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group. "A similar scenario is playing out" on Friday.
During the week, oil has mostly traded around a range of $75 and $80 a barrel.
"Capping the upside has been the potent combination of comfortable oil inventories and poor demand, while supporting the bottom end, has been the persistent weakness in the U.S. dollar," said Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global.
In other energy trading, December gasoline lost 0.5% to $1.9597 a gallon, and December heating oil dropped 1.3% to $1.9711 a gallon.
December natural gas fell 1.3% to $4.287 per million British thermal units.
The United States Oil Fund (USO 39.06, -0.60, -1.51%) fell 1.2%, and the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG 8.91, -0.03, -0.33%) lost 1.3%.
