With a return to the bull market, oil futures closed out Friday on a positive note, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, September West Texas Intermediate crude rose 30 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $48.52 a barrel. For the week, prices finished over 9% higher than last Friday’s settlement—the best weekly percentage gain since early March.
On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, October Brent crude fell by a penny to settle at $50.88 a barrel. It still gained about 8.3% for the week, its largest weekly percentage climb since early April.
Both WTI and Brent crude oil finished Thursday more than 20% higher than their lows seen earlier this month, marking their entry into a bull market, where they remained on Friday.
“The crude oil market is going to have a very difficult time maintaining these price levels,” said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group. “The market fundamentals look weak moving forward and will act as a major obstacle for prices not only to move higher, but to simply maintain the levels we have achieved this week.”
“That combination of big supplies and poor demand spells trouble for prices moving forward,” said Evans, noting that Long Leaf expects a move back to $45 for WTI next week.
Meanwhile, September natural gas ended at $2.584 per million British thermal units, down 9 cents, or 3.4%, for a loss of less than 0.1% for the week.