Oil futures score fifth weekly gain in a row

MarketWatch.com - MarketPulse SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures on Friday finished slightly lower but tallied a modest 0.4% gain for the week, their fifth weekly climb in a row. Natural-gas futures, meanwhile, fell for the session, but rallied 9.2% on the week on expectations for higher demand from the severe cold weather. March crude fell 5 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $100.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Recent soft U.S. economic data, including the rise in weekly jobless claims reported Thursday, had dulled the outlook for energy demand. But data Friday showing consumer sentiment was unchanged in January dampened the selling pressure and provided a life line for the crude price, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade. March natural gas settled at $5.21 per million British thermal units, down a cent, or 0.2%. Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.