Prices for U.S. light crude bounced around a bit today and then settled in for the weekend at $50.96 a barrel. The low dropped to $50.05 and at one point shot up to $52.30 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude was down 36 cents at $50.77
Prices broke out of the whole week’s range to the upside,” Tom Bentz, a broker and analyst with Paribas Futures in New York, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). “Bears got caught in the bear trap again.”
Phil Flynn, analyst with Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, added in the same WSJ story that a strong jobs report for April helped damp the bearish sentiment that weighed on the market during last month’s sharp selloff.
“The traders think the selloff was overdone, and most likely they are right based on recent economic numbers,” Mr. Flynn said. “The bounce in retail sales and the blockbuster jobs number seem to suggest that the soft patch talk was a little overdone.”
Gasoline was down ever so slightly finishing at less than a penny a gallon difference. But in what seems to be the run of the mill occurrence right now another refinery is having production problems. Sunoco’s refinery in Philadelphia is having problems with a reformer and the reformer will be down for two weeks, slowing their production.
Also traders are speculating heavily that OPEC can’t grow production levels much more as consumption is expected to increase, particularly in China and India over the coming months and years.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
