Why Oil Stocks Popped Today

As markets wind down for the week Friday, oil prices are continuing to rise, with WTI crude futures up a full percentage point and Brent crude not far behind -- up 0.9%. Well, yesterday, Al Jazeera reported that a group including OPEC and allied oil-producing nations such as Russia have agreed to limit their January increase in oil output to just half a million barrels per day (bpd). Granted, on the one hand, any increase in production sounds like it should be bad news for oil prices, as the oil will be flowing into a market that remains saturated due to a lack of demand during the continuing pandemic.