(raw materials / closing price /% change)

Light Crude 97.58 +0.21%

Gold 1,289.60 +0.33%

West Texas Intermediate oil fell for the sixth time in seven days amid forecasts that U.S. refineries reduced operating rates last week, allowing crude supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, to rebound from near six-year lows.

Refineries probably operated at 92.8 percent of capacity on Aug. 1, down 0.7 percentage point from the prior week, according to a Bloomberg survey before a government report tomorrow. The announcement last week that a Coffeyville, Kansas, refinery that gets oil from Cushing may be offline for most of August sent WTI to a four-month low. Brent slipped on reports that Kurdish fighters in Iraq retook border towns seized by Islamic militants.

"We're all anxious about tomorrow's data," said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York. "WTI has been supported by the fall in Cushing supplies this year. Coffeyville being offline may change the whole formula and we may see a supply gain."

WTI for September delivery dropped 48 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $97.81 a barrel at 10:27 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $97.09 on Aug. 1, the lowest intraday level since Feb. 5. The volume of all futures traded was 28 percent below the 100-day average. Prices are down 0.6 percent this year.

Brent for September settlement slipped 72 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $104.69 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Volumes were 10 percent higher than the 100-day average. The European benchmark crude traded at a $6.88 premium to WTI, down from $7.12 yesterday.

Gold prices down by a stronger dollar after strong data on factory orders and business activity in the services sector.

In June, the U.S. industrial orders rose by 1.1% compared with May, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Analysts had expected a growth rate of 0.6%. According to revised data, the volume of orders in May fell 0.6%, not 0.5%, as previously reported.

The volume of orders excluding transportation equipment also rose in June by 1.1%, after falling 0.2% the month before.

Orders for durable goods (over 3 years), which accounted for more than half of all orders of industrial enterprises, rose last month by 1.7% after falling 0.9% in May.

Orders for durable goods excluding aircraft and military equipment rebounded in June by 3.3%. Delivery of these goods, which are included in the calculation of GDP, decreased by 0.3%.

In July, the index of business activity in the U.S. service sector (ISM Non-Manufacturing) increased to 58.7 points - the highest level since December 2005, compared to 56 points in June, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).

Experts expected the figure to 56.6 points.

Exceeding the index level of 50 points indicates growth of business activity in the service sector, while the index value below 50 indicates its decline.

Sharp increase in business activity in the U.S. service in July in conjunction with climb acceleration in the manufacturing sector to its highest level in three years indicate a strengthening of the U.S. economy at the beginning of the third quarter of 2014.

Gold is under heavy selling pressure in recent weeks, as improvements in the U.S. economy generate speculation that the Fed will raise interest rates sooner than expected, which would reduce the demand for gold for use as a hedge against a flexible monetary policy.

The cost of the August gold futures on the COMEX today dropped to $ 1282.60 per ounce.