By Saumya Vaishampayan and Carla Mozee, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures rose on Friday as positive U.S. economic data outweighed Thursday’s gloomy reports. Crude oil for June delivery CLM3 +0.11% added 74 cents, or 0.8%, to trade at $95.90 a barrel. Prices pushed above $96 earlier Friday. Preliminary consumer sentiment data beat forecasts in May, surging to a print of 83.7 from 76.4 in April. Separately, the leading economic index rose to 95.0 in April, reversing March’s decline. Crude oil gains on Friday threatened to eliminate the current weekly loss of less than 1%. Oil hasn’t had a weekly pullback since mid-April. The ICE Dollar Index DXY +0.53% rose to 84.275. Still, crude oil faces fundamental factors that could bring down prices, according to Miswin Mahesh of Barclays. “We continue to see very few constructive elements across the demand-supply equation for crude oil,� Mahesh wrote in a note. Thursday’s session saw oil prices finishing up 86 cents, or 0.9%, to $95.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But earlier in the session, they had turned lower after data showed business conditions in the Philadelphia region’s manufacturing sector worsened this month. Investors also received a report that weekly jobless claims rose to a higher-than-expected level, and mixed readings on the housing market, a rebound in which is expected to support recovery in the U.S. economy. The overall round of lackluster economic reports Thursday appeared to have raised hopes by some that the Federal Reserve could continue to pump money into the economy, aiding the energy market in the process. But talk that the Fed might soon start winding down its bond-buying program grew louder this week, with three Fed officials saying separately they can see an end in sight. On Friday, the markets will watch for any hints about tapering of the Fed’s easing when Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Narayana Kocherlakota speaks, though he is not a voting member of the Fed’s interest-rate setting board this year. In other moves, Brent crude oil for July delivery UK:LCON3 +0.19% rose 78 cents to $104.56 a barrel. Natural gas for June delivery NGM13 +0.53% was 3 cents, or 0.76%, to $3.96 per British thermal units. Prices on Thursday fell 14 cents after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-projected rise of 99 billion cubic feet in U.S. inventories for natural gas. June gasoline RBM3 +0.47% on Friday rose nearly 3 cents, or 0.9%, to trade at $2.91 a gallon, and June heating oil HOM3 +0.54% added nearly 3 cents, or 0.92%, to $2.94 a gallon. Saumya Vaishampayan is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York. You can find her on Twitter @saumvaish. Carla Mozee is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @MWMozee.

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