Oil futures edge back up

After wild price swings in recent sessions, crude-oil futures took it slow in electronic trading early Friday, with both the New York and London benchmarks making relatively moderate gains.

New York Mercantile Exchange-traded February crude CLG5, +0.11%  improved by 0.5% to $56.11 a barrel on Globex, clawing back a bit of its 2.2% drubbing Wednesday when the market was heading into the Christmas holiday.

London-traded Brent North Sea crude for February LCOG5, +0.10%  also added 0.5% to trade at $60.54 a barrel after taking a 2.4% loss Wednesday.