Crude prices slumped 5% on Thursday amid a broad sell-off in commodities By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures traded marginally higher on Friday after their 5% decline in the previous session, as traders awaited data expected to show the second increase in U.S. payrolls since the beginning of the recession. Crude oil for March delivery gained 40 cents to $73.54 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. The contract had earlier fallen to an intraday low of $72.46 a barrel. Oil prices dropped 5% on Thursday, posting their biggest percentage drop since last July and joining a broad-based decline in commodity prices. The sell-off came as the U.S. dollar strengthened against its rivals and data showed an unexpected rise in weekly jobless claims. "A rebound in prices seems possible for the short term, especially should this afternoon's U.S. job market data surprise on the upside," said analysts at Commerzbank AG in a note to clients. "For the medium term, however, prices should decline further," they said. Data on U.S. nonfarm payrolls for January will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Economists polled by MarketWatch expect payrolls to grow by a seasonally adjusted 25,000 in January. That would be only the second increase since the recession began over two years ago. U.S. stock futures indicated more losses on Wall Street after the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU 10,002, -268.37, -2.61%) fell 268 points on Thursday, posting its biggest one-day point drop since April 20, 2009. The dollar, meanwhile, rose against its rivals, as worries over public debt levels in Europe continued to dominate sentiment. The dollar index (DXY 80.16, +0.24, +0.30%) , which tracks the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose to 80.165 from 79.882 in North American trading late Thursday.

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