"There was a choppy day yesterday with some sharp moves on the futures markets but now it is marking time after the US stats-related move on Wednesday,"
one London-based broker said. "There's still potential concern about financial markets, but they appear to have stabilised currently, especially Asian markets, which were strong over night." Global crude futures were steady Friday ahead of the long weekend in the US.

The sharp increase in US gasoline prices in the spring and summer of 2006 was due to market factors, such as increased demand and higher crude and ethanol prices, not violations of antitrust laws, the US' top competition regulators said Thursday in a report commissioned by President George W. Bush.
"The determination that the price increases were attributable to these six factors also supports the conclusion that the increases did not stem from violations of the antitrust laws," the report said. Bush requested the review by the US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice's antitrust division in April 2006 after prices spiked significantly in February and March.

Updated: August 31, 2007