WASHINGTON: The US equity market started the second half of the year on the front foot but institutional investors are tiptoeing towards the exit just as retail investors have returned. Wall Street benchmarks made progress thanks to the longest streak of gains for crude oil in more than five years, lifting energy stocks,
The price of Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil — the international, North Sea and US crude benchmarks respectively — both climbed for an eighth day running on Monday, putting Brent within touching distance of $50 a barrel again. That is the longest run of uninterrupted gains since February 2012. That buoyed the shares of US energy companies such as ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil and Chesapeake at the start of a holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 energy index rose 2 per cent in New York with only one of the index’s 34 losing ground.
The buoyant performance lifted the industry sub-index further off the one-year low touched in June and helped the broader S&P 500 close 0.2 per cent higher on the half-day of trading on Monday. “Global oil demand has not yet risen to offset higher supply but we expect sustained above-trend economic growth globally to support oil demand from here,” said Richard Turnill, chief investment strategist at BlackRock. “We see selected opportunities in beaten-down energy assets.”
