- Crude oil climbed to its highest settlement in more than two years, as signs of a demand recovery in the U.S. and Europe outweighed a round of weaker than expected economic data from China.
- The U.K. economy reopened following a four-month COVID-19 lockdown, France and Spain have relaxed COVID-related restrictions, and Portugal and the Netherlands eased travel restrictions.
- In the U.S., air travel on Sunday surged to 1.8M people, the highest total since March 2020.
- But on the negative side, data from China showed factories slowing production growth in April while retail sales missed expectations, and some Indian states said they would extend lockdowns to fight the pandemic.
- June WTI crude (CL1:COM) closed +1.4% to $66.27/bbl, the highest front-month contract finish since April 23, 2019, while July Brent (CO1:COM) finished +1.1% to $69.46/bbl, its best settlement since March.
- ETFs: USO, XLE, UCO, XOP, VDE, GUSH, OIH, ERX, BGR, BNO
- Energy was easily the day's strongest S&P industry group; among its best gainers were OXY +5.1%, BKR +4.8%, MRO +3.8%, SLB +3.8%, COP +3.3%, EOG +3.1%, HAL +3.1%.
- Also, gasoline stations in the eastern U.S. are slowly returning to service in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline outage, as GasBuddy reported earlier today that 11,946 stations were without fuel, ~500 fewer than the day before.
- Colonial is now shipping at normal rates, although it will take some time for the supply chain to fully catch up, the operator said over the weekend.