•Global crude futures regained ground Friday, recovering from the massive selloff in late Thursday trading after both WTI and Brent contracts had hit all-time high trades earlier in the day, market sources said. "I think we will see some more profit-taking today--support levels could be tested," said a broker. "On WTI, the support level is around $93.60/b, and the next is about a dollar under that."

•Thursday's volatile afternoon trading saw widespread profit-taking as weaker equity markets discouraged the taking of additional long positions and the US dollar rebounded slightly.

•The rapid reversal to the downside on Thursday appeared to be related to a more than 200-point drop in the US equity markets. Euphoria from the US Federal Reserve's 25-basis point interest rate cut rapidly dissipated as markets realized the central bank had signaled that a further rate cut at its December meeting was now unlikely.

Updated: November 2, 2007