Morning Market Overview

Oil prices received a strong boost from a surge in equity markets after a very favorable US jobs report on Friday.

The push higher in oil prices on Friday was enough to move oil onto the positive side of the ledger for the week after declining the previous week. The weekly fundamental snapshot released by the EIA last week was neutral resulting in oil market participants mainly focusing on the externals.

The main price directional driver for the oil complex coming from the externals was in equities which surged on Friday sending the Dow up by 3.25 percent for the week with the Nasdaq higher by 4.3 percent week on week. The US dollar was slightly higher for the week and more of a neutral driver on oil prices.

Even with oil prices increasing for the week the spot WTI and Brent contract remain in a downward sloping linear regression trend channel but did end the week near the upper resistance area of the trading channel with the possibility of an upside breakout sometime next week if conditions in the financial markets remain as they were at the end of this past week.

A slightly positive data point hit the media airwaves late Friday afternoon in the latest Baker Hughes data reporting the number of rigs deployed to the US oil sector decreased on the week (by 4 rigs) after increasing during the previous week. The latest rig data does not yet change the overall uptrend in the US oil rig count.