Oil falls as unease about recovery spreads

                                
 * Market sandwiched between slow recovery, growth hopes
                                
 * Technicals show crude to rise to near $77 [ID:nSGE68N01G]
                                
 * Coming Up: U.S. New home sales Aug; 1400 GMT
                                
 BY Alejandro Barbajosa
                                
 SINGAPORE, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Oil fell on Friday as
investor unease about the economic recovery spread across
markets after lacklustre U.S. employment and housing data,
sending equities lower and risk-haven currencies higher.
                                
 U.S. crude for November <CLc1> fell 26 cents to $74.92 a
barrel at 0255 GMT. Still, prices were heading for a weekly
gain of more than 1.6 percent, without straddling out of the
$70-$80 range in more than six weeks. ICE Brent crude <LCOc1>
slid 28 cents to $77.83.
                                
 "We are essentially trapped in a range between $70 and
$80," said Tony Nunan, a risk manager with Tokyo-based
Mitsubishi Corp.
                                
 While expectations the U.S. will inject more money into the
economy make a good case for buying commodities, "it's probably
better to take the money off the table and wait to see if we
are going to get out of this mess or not," Nunan said.
                                
 The recovery from the U.S. economy's longest recession
since the 1930s fizzled in the second quarter and growth
remains sluggish with unemployment stubbornly high, dampening
expectations for a recovery in oil demand.
                                
 U.S. initial claims for state unemployment benefits
increased 12,000 to 465,000 last week, the Labor Department
said on Thursday, breaking two straight weeks of declines.
Financial markets had forecast claims steady at 450,000.
[ID:nN23130114]
                                
 Growth rates in the euro zone's services and manufacturing
sectors slowed more than forecast this month as firms hired
fewer new workers, surveys showed, offering fresh signs the
region's economic recovery is losing momentum. [ID:nLDE68M0GG]
                                
 "Growth has slowed so much that it almost feels as a
recession now compared to the quick recovery we had," Nunan
said. "There are still so many problems in the horizon that the
feeling is of a double dip."
                                
 Investors will be looking out for further clues on the
economy's direction from U.S. new home sales for August, due
out later on Friday.
                                
 Sales of existing U.S. homes increased 7.6 percent to an
annual rate of 4.13 million units, a report showed on Thursday,
a touch above market expectations. Sales had plummeted 27
percent in July to the lowest level since 1997 after a tax
credit for homebuyers expired. While they rose last month, the
pace was still the second lowest in 13 years.
                                
 U.S. oil inventories at the key Cushing, Oklahoma, crude
oil hub rose 198,440 barrels to 37.855 million barrels in the
week to Sept. 21, Genscape data showed Thursday, following the
restart of Enbridge Inc's <ENB.TO> oil pipeline 6A.
[ID:nN23158238]
                                
 The energy industry data provider estimated that Cushing
crude tanks were filled to 73 percent of shell capacity as of
Tuesday, up one percent from the previous week.
                                
 At a national level, total U.S. petroleum stockpiles last
week reached their highest since weekly records began in 1990.
                                
 "If the inventory situation wasn't so bad, you might have
more people going into oil, but the U.S. situation is
terrible," Nunan said.
                                
 In other markets, Asian stocks fell back from recent
five-month highs on Friday, hit by profit-taking fed by renewed
worries over the global recovery, while the yen clung close to
its highest since Japan's currency intervention last week.
[MKTS/GLOB]
                                
 Gold rose to near $1,300 an ounce on Thursday, ending
higher for a fourth straight day, while the euro retreated from
a five-month high against the dollar, hobbled by worries about
Ireland's economy and its troubled banking sector.
                                
 The dollar strengthened against a basket of currencies on
Friday, after hitting its lowest against the Japanese yen since
last week's intervention. [ID:nN23202482]
                                
 Tropical Storm Matthew formed over the western Caribbean on
Thursday and was expected to hit Central America as early as
Friday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
                                
 Models of the storm, which could become a hurricane this
weekend, suggest it might reach the Gulf of Mexico, where most
of Mexico's oil wells are located. Forecasts also show that the
storm could turn north along the eastern edge of the Yucatan
Peninsula and into the central Gulf of Mexico. [ID:nN23179585]
 (Editing by Manash Goswami)