By Oil futures were largely unchanged on Friday morning, with both Brent and WTI prices set to record weekly gains following escalating tensions in the Middle East that caused a significant rise in crude oil benchmarks.
Price Moves
- West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery dropped 4 cents, or less than 0.1%, to trade at $76.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
- April Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down 19 cents, or 0.2%, at $81.47 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
- March gasoline saw little change, trading at $2.34 a gallon, while March heating oil added 0.1%, reaching $2.89 a gallon.
- Natural gas for March delivery fell by 7 cents, or 3.5%, to trade at $1.85 per million British thermal units.
Market Drivers
The Brent crude price remained above the $80-a-barrel mark after rising over 3% in the previous session due to Israel’s launch of new air strikes in Gaza. Israel rejected a cease-fire offer from Hamas and the return of hostages in the Gaza Strip.
Deutsche Bank strategists led by Jim Reid warned that Brent’s move above $81 per barrel could cause “nervousness about inflationary pressures,” which could have an impact on the stock market. Investors are eagerly awaiting revisions to last year’s U.S. CPI data, as it may have the potential to influence market sentiment.
On Thursday afternoon, two out of three U.S. stock benchmarks hit fresh records, with the S&P 500 briefly surpassing the historic 5,000-point milestone, according to FactSet data.
Comments