By Barani Krishnan
Crude prices settled mixed on Friday as conflicting signals on the economy, the coronavirus pandemic, and the pounding taken by tech stocks on Wall Street added to investor uncertainty.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude futures, settled up 22 cents, or 0.5%, at $41.07 per barrel on Friday. For the week, WTI fell 0.5%.
London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for oil, meanwhile, slid 42 cents, or almost 1%, to settle at $43.34 per barrel. For the week though, Brent eked out a 0.5% gain.
“The risks seem to be growing to the downside for crude and any rallies that do not stem from any major production outages could be short-lived,” said Ed Moya, an analyst at New York’s online trading platform OANDA.
“WTI crude’s tight range is likely ending now as the latest move in Treasuries could spark a broader move across all asset classes.”
Just on Wednesday, the U.S. benchmark hit $42.40, its highest since March, while Brent rose to a four-month peak of $44.88 — keeping to oil bulls’ target of achieving a minimum $45 a barrel for both WTI and Brent in the near term.
Oil has been in a broad rally mode for three months, going from nearly minus $40 to positive $40, likening to the proverbial phoenix rising from its ashes.
The uptrend has held as bulls focused on the demand recovery for gasoline since the lifting of Covid-19 lockdowns in May, despite threats of new curbs on businesses from another wave of the virus.
That aside, next month the Saudi-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies led by Russia will roll back some 2 million barrels from the 9.6-million barrel per day in production cuts observed since May.
In Friday’s session, crude prices moved up on economic data from Europe, but gains were limited as tensions between the United States and China flared.
China ordered the United States to close its consulate in the city of Chengdu on Friday, responding to a U.S. demand this week that China close its Houston consulate.
The renewed tensions between the world’s top two oil consumers stoked worries about oil demand, which already faces headwinds including rising coronavirus cases in the United States.
On the Covid-19 front, the United States surpassed 4 million confirmed cases and has more than 144,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That contrasted with the global case count of 15 million and 633,000-off fatalities.
The U.S. economy shrank 5 percent in the first three months of 2020 for its sharpest decline since the Great Recession of 2008-09, as most of the 50 states in the country went into lockdown to stem the outbreak of the virus. While most businesses have reopened over the past two months, economists still warn of a double-digit recession by the second quarter — meaning job losses could continue.
The U.S. response to the Covid-19 has also been mixed, to say the least.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled new guidelines that seemed to favor the Trump administration’s dictum that schools reopen in fall, even as the U.S. Public Interest Research Group — which represents more than 150 health professionals — urged in an open letter that the country be shut down to stem another major outbreak of the pandemic.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans aligned with President Donald Trump and opposing Democrat lawmakers led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrangled over a new $1 trillion coronavirus bill, after data showed another 1.4 million Americans were added to the unemployment list last week.
On Wall Street, technology issues led losses, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite heading for a second-straight weekly loss as top stocks like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google’s Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) all traded below the flatline.