oil futures fell friday pulling back from sevenyear highs set earlier in the week after a rise in us crude inventories and a continued selloff in stocks that weighed on overall sentiment west texas intermediate crude for march delivery cl00 clh22 fell 115 or 13 to 8440 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange trimming the us benchmark’s weekly advance to 07 according to factset march brent crude brn00 brnh22  the global benchmark was off 107 or 12 at 8731 a barrel on ice futures europe headed for a 15 weekly gain both wti and brent closed wednesday at their highest since october 2014 crude prices had “recently been reacting only to news that supported higher prices such as temporary supply outages that have meanwhile been resolved the question now is whether the correction will continue or whether the lower price level will be viewed by market participants as a buying opportunity” said carsten fritsch analyst at commerzbank in a note “both scenarios are possible as things currently stand” analysts said a continued slide in equities was taking a toll on sentiment for other assets viewed as risky a sharp rise in treasury yields tied to expectations for a more aggressive than previously expected series of rate increases by the fed has been blamed for a stockmarket selloff that’s sent the techheavy nasdaq composite comp into correction territory while also dragging down other major indexes including the dow jones industrial average djia and the sp 500 spx  the energy information administration on thursday reported that us crude inventories excluding the spr climbed by 500000 barrels for the week ended jan 14 compared with expectations for a drop of 700000 barrels the eia also reported a weekly inventory increase of 59 million barrels for gasoline while distillate stockpiles fell by 14 million barrels