U.S. oil prices settle at highest since November, post back-to-back weekly gains

Both WTI and Brent crude tallied a second straight weekly gain.

Oil prices, however, saw “choppy” trading this week, partly because of the U.S. dollar’s strength holding them back, Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and Forex.com, told MarketWatch.

The strength of the dollar has been “offsetting supportive measures such as the Middle East situation, OPEC’s ongoing intervention, and hopes economic conditions in China will improve in the coming quarters,” he said. “All told, I think risks are skewed to the upside for oil, as there are not many negative influences to impact prices.” 

WTI on Friday settled above what Razaqzada sees as “key resistance around $78,” where the 200-day average has proven a “tough nut to break.” This could lead to a “sharp continuation toward $80 next,” he said.

Expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut as early as March took a hit earlier this week after a hotter-than-expected January consumer-price index reading, which also sent the stock market skidding and Treasury yields higher.

Equities subsequently recovered most of their losses and yields stabilized, however, helped by a soft January retail-sales report on Thursday that soothed worries that economic growth would lead to a resurgence in inflation.

The larger-than-expected drop in U.S. retail sales prompted “hopes that the [Fed] will consider cutting rates sooner, despite the latest CPI reading creating a hawkish sentiment” within the Fed, StoneX’s Kansas City energy team, led by Alex Hodes, said in a Friday note .

Economists are cautioning against reading too much into the sharp drop, noting that the extreme cold snap the U.S. experienced in January slowed everyone down. “While the data is great news for the [Fed rate-cut plans], it needs to be taken with a grain of salt because of the weather,” Hodes said.

On Friday, however, data provided a sign that inflation may not slow toward the Fed’s 2% target as fast as hoped, as wholesale costs in January rose by a greater-than-expected 0.3%.

“The past few months have been a struggle to get a good handle on oil markets, with too much geopolitical noise and one U.S. supply disruption after another creating short-term price overshoots,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, told MarketWatch.

He believes the oil market will “get politically testy” if prices move much higher.

See: Biden’s pause on natural-gas exports rolled back in House vote. Senate is unlikely to follow suit.

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