Crude-oil futures were in negative territory in Asian hours Thursday as a positive reading of Chinese manufacturing for October failed to prop up oil prices, or offset the impact of a large build-up in U.S. oil inventories. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in December traded at $80.44 a barrel at 0421 GMT, down $0.08 in the Globex electronic session. December Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.08 to $84.63 a barrel. The preliminary HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, a key gauge of activity in the manufacturing sector, rose to 50.4 in October, compared with a final reading of 50.2 in September. This was the third positive data point from China this week, after the GDP and industrial production numbers that pointed to stabilizing economic growth in the world’s No. 2 economy. But oil prices, which are […]