Energy did the heavy lifting into the US close. Brent (UKOil) rose 2.05% to $97.35 and WTI (USOil) added 1.74% to $92.23, both extending strong runs β€” up around 3.5% on the week and roughly 13% over the month.

Commodities and metals

Crude aside, metals leaned lower. Gold slipped 1.16% to $4,354.98, trimming its monthly change to -1.07% while holding a 19.86% year-on-year gain. Silver eased 0.64% to $65.73 but is still up 60.8% over 12 months.

Palladium was the session’s weakest name across the board, down 4.11% to $1,343.97. Platinum edged 0.46% lower to $1,823.67, keeping a 3.75% monthly gain.

Indices

Equities closed broadly softer. The Nikkei 225 led declines with a 1.53% drop to 65,032.63, though it remains up 49.51% on the year. The Dow fell 0.58% to 52,762.71, the S&P 500 lost 0.39% to 7,672.81, and the Nasdaq 100 held up best at -0.26% to 29,496.23, still 1.17% higher on the week.

Europe was uniformly red: the DAX 40 -0.51%, FTSE 100 -0.54%, CAC 40 -0.36% and Euro Stoxx 50 -0.30%. The Hang Seng bucked the trend with a 0.14% gain to 25,331.16.

Currencies

Moves in FX were muted at the majors. EUR/USD was near flat at 1.16216, GBP/USD eased 0.09% to 1.35331, and USD/JPY ticked up 0.10% to 153.97 β€” though the yen’s broader strength shows in the weekly picture, with EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY and USD/JPY all down around 3% on the week.

The Norwegian krone firmed alongside oil: USD/NOK fell 0.52% to 9.21602, down 2.88% on the month. USD/ZAR slipped 0.33% to 15.921 and USD/MXN eased 0.21% to 16.907.

Crypto

Polkadot was the standout, surging 17% to $1.239 and now up 43.24% on the week. XTZ rose 3.78% and BNB added 1.70% to $751.48. The majors were quieter and mixed: Bitcoin slipped 0.71% to $78,520.32, Ethereum eased 0.26% to $2,482.65, while XRP gained 1.63% to $1.4184. Stellar and Litecoin lagged, down 2.77% and 1.87%.

Into the next session, crude sits at the top of the leaderboard while palladium and gold mark the metals complex as the day’s weak spot.