Oil rises for third straight week on Covid-19 vaccine optimism

Bloomberg

Oil rose to the highest in nearly three months with positive Covid-19 vaccine developments paving the way for a more sustained recovery in oil demand.
Futures rose 5% in New York this week for a third straight weekly gain as Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE requested emergency authorisation of their Covid vaccine. Moderna Inc also released positive interim results from a final-stage trial and said it’s close to seeking emergency authorisation. Still, further gains were limited by broader market declines amid a dispute between the White House and the Federal Reserve over emergency lending programs.
“All the incremental vaccine updates are good news for 2021,” but in the meantime, “the virus spread is just going to get worse,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp “We don’t have the two most important working arms of the government working together and this is going to weigh on risk appetite.”
Even with vaccines on the horizon, a recovery in oil demand faces obstacles with governments under pressure to tighten restrictions and curb the spread of the virus. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s officials are considering tougher pandemic rules placed on broader regions of England next month after a national lockdown is set to end and the country returns to its tiered system. Meanwhile, the shift towards working from home may have a lasting chill on gasoline demand, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George.
The recent climb in headline prices has been accompanied by significant moves in timespreads.