Crude oil, gold and silver are drifting sideways in anticipation of the closely-watched US jobs report set to cross the wires ahead of the opening bell on Wall St. Oil Prices Mark Time Ahead of US Jobs Report Crude Oil (WTI) $80.66 +$0.45 +0.56% Prices are drifting sideways below the top of a bearish Rising Wedge formation, with negative RSI divergence bolstering the case for a downside scenario. US equity index futures are trading 0.3 percent higher, which bodes well for the risk-correlated crude price but things could change dramatically after the US jobs report crosses the wires at 13:30 GMT. Expectations call for the world’s largest crude consumer to have lost 68,000 jobs in February, sending the unemployment rate up to 9.8 percent. Gold, Silver to Track Dollar Following US Labor Data Gold $1135.15 +$2.95 +0.26% Gold prices inched lower after re-testing support-turned-resistance below $1142.76 at a rising trend line established from the swing bottom in early February, finding support above the $1118.60-1125.13 region. The percent-change correlation between gold and the S&P 500 has dropped to the lowest in seven weeks, pointing to continued de-coupling from risk trends. Still, the US jobs report may prove market-moving considering its implications for interest rates and thereby for the US Dollar, with an index of the greenback’s value against six top currencies now showing a fairly significant -0.63 percent change inverse correlation with the yellow metal. Silver $17.28 +$0.16 +0.95% Silver’s inverse correlation with the Dollar Index (an average of the US unit’s average value against six of its top counterparts) now stands at -0.66, hinting that as with gold, the cheaper precious metal’s performance rests on the outcome of the US jobs report and its implications for future monetary policy. Technically, prices continued to stall at resistance marked by a rising trend line connecting major swing highs from early February, with initial support at $16.80.

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