Crude heads for 12% weekly slump, shrugging off Gulf tanker attacks

Crude is limping toward the weekend with a bruise. Both Brent and West Texas Intermediate are set to finish the week down about 12%, a hefty slide that landed despite fresh attacks on tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz — the kind of headline that usually sends oil traders scrambling for the buy button.

The numbers tell the story: Brent futures are hovering near $99.86 a barrel, while WTI sits around $91.62. That's a partial rebound from Wednesday, when prices cratered 8%, showing buyers stepped back in even as the weekly damage piled up.

So why the shrug? Markets appear to be pricing in the possibility of de-escalation in Middle Eastern conflicts, a bet that has outweighed the immediate supply jitters stirred up by the tanker incidents. In other words, traders are looking past the fire and toward the fire exit.

Next up is the geopolitical scoreboard. Observers will be glued to any signals of de-escalation, plus remarks from OPEC's Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo and Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. A shift in production policy or a change in regional stability could either stretch the selloff or snap the trend the other way.