Business news with words department+government+previous. 4 news.

OIL futures retreated yesterday, giving back much of the previous session's big gain after the government's November jobs report was not as robust as some traders had hoped. The Labor Department report "wasn't a blockbuster number that would keep feeding the oil bull," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp, in Chicago. The report showed employers added 94,000 jobs to their payrolls in November following October's 170,000 gain. The data quashed the hopes of some oil investors that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by a half percent instead of the more widely expected quarter percent when it meets Tuesday, Flynn said. Interest rate cuts tend to weaken the dollar against other currencies. Oil futures offer a hedge against a weak dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the greenback is falling. Light, sweet crude for January delivery fell US$1.95 to settle at US$88.28 a barrel on the New

CRUDE oil futures closed down in choppy trading yesterday, failing to breach US$100 a barrel after the government reported that crude oil inventories at a key Midwest oil terminal rose for the first time in weeks. The news helped offset the market impact of an overall drop in crude oil stocks. Light, sweet crude for January delivery fell 74 cents to settle at US$97.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Stocks of distillates, including heating oil, also dropped more than expected last week, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported. That could mean more bad news for heating oil customers already expecting costs to rise 22 percent this winter. Heating oil futures fell 0.27 cent to settle at US$2.6874 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier hitting US$2.7154, a new record. Crude prices -- which rose as high as US$99.29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange earlier Wednesday and broke the previous intraday record of US$98.62

Crude oil futures rose yesterday as traders closed out December contracts and also on investors' belief that supplies are not as plentiful as a government report at first suggested. Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $1.67 to settle at $95.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But January crude, which now becomes the front-month contract, closed $1.26 below that, settling up $1.77 at $93.84 a barrel. December crude had lost 66 cents in the previous session after the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported an unexpected 2.8 million barrel increase in inventories last week. But much of that supply build occurred on the West Coast, where the energy infrastructure is largely isolated from the rest of the U.S., analysts said. "I think the market may have realized overnight that that EIA report wasn't that bearish," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois. Reports that ministers from

WALL Street capped a huge week with a sharp advance yesterday after the government's employment report for September and its revision of August's data cooled the market's fears of a recession. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, the measure most closely followed by market watchers, reached a new closing high. The Labor Department's report that employers added 110,000 jobs in September _ essentially what analysts had expected _ reassured Wall Street that the job market wasn't pulling back sharply as was feared a month ago. Though the data appeared to lessen the likelihood of an interest rate cut when the Federal Reserve meets Oct. 30-31, investors were relieved that the economy doesn't appear headed for a precipitous slowdown. Strength this year in the job market amid a housing downturn and tighter credit conditions has been an important pillar for the economy. With consumer spending accounting for about two-thirds of US economic activity, investors are eager for workers to continue to collect their paychecks. Much of Wall Street's collective exhale yesterday owed to a revision in August payrolls, which were updated to show a gain of 89,000 jobs compared with an earlier estimate of loss of 4,000 jobs. The release of the August figure _ when economists had predicted a rise _ sent the Dow down nearly 250 points in a single session and, market watchers say, played a role in the Fed's decision to cut its key interest rate by a larger-than-expected half-percentage point last month. "We're not seeing a weakening of the labor market. There's no indication that the wheels are falling off," said T.J. Marta, economic strategist at RBC Capital Markets. He contends that while the employment figures make it less likely the Fed will cut rates this month, many on Wall Street were relieved to see the economy forging ahead. "It looks bad compared with the rip-roaring days in the housing sector but this is called normalcy." The Dow Jones industrial average rose 91.70, or 0.66 percent, to 14,066.01. The blue chip index set a new trading high of 14,124.54, topping a high of 14,115.51 set Monday, when the index also saw a record close. Broader stock indicators also jumped. The S&P 500 index rose 14.75, or 0.96 percent, to 1,557.59. The advance put the S&P 500 ahead of the previous record close of 1,553.08, which occurred July 19 before stocks began a broad retrenchment amid concerns about credit, housing and the overall economy. The S&P 500