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By Bloomberg

Oil rebounded from the biggest five-day decline in almost four years as China sought to restore investor confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

Futures rose as much as 1.6 percent in New York. Chinese regulators banned major stockholders late Wednesday from selling stakes in listed companies, while Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday the public security ministry will look into “malicious” shorting of equities. Diplomats in Vienna reached a deal on economic sanctions for Iran during nuclear talks as they worked toward a final accord.

Oil has given up this year’s gains as investors avoided riskier assets amid China’s equities rout and the turmoil in Greece. U.S. crude stockpiles increased for a second week through July 3 and are almost 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average, government data showed Wednesday.

“With China, it’s about sentiment,” Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. “The market reacted to a sense that the problems with the stock market might actually be a symptom of something a little bit larger.”

West Texas Intermediate for August delivery climbed as much as 84 cents to $52.49 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $52.49 at 1:14 p.m. Singapore time. It dropped 13 percent in the five days through Wednesday, the most since August 2011. Total volume was about 17 percent above the 100-day average. Prices have fallen 1.4 percent this year.

Chinese Equities

Brent for August settlement advanced as much as 83 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $57.88 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $5.36 to WTI.

Chinese officials have unveiled market-boosting measures almost every night over the past 10 days to revive investor confidence in a market that’s lost $3.9 trillion in less than a month. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has banned major shareholders, corporate executives and directors from selling stakes in listed companies for six months.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.3 percent at the midday break. China is the world’s biggest oil consumer after the U.S.

Nuclear Talks

In Vienna, negotiators agreed that sanctions on Iran will be lifted on the first day of implementation of a nuclear accord, according to Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. Differences persist on the issue of an arms embargo, he said.

President Barack Obama and his national security team spoke with U.S. nuclear negotiators on the progress of the talks, according to a White House statement. Earlier, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said Obama saw less than a 50 percent chance that the discussions will conclude with a deal.

Iran’s plan to sell more crude and recapture market share when sanctions are lifted is a long way off, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Societe Generale SA said last week. Its goal of boosting exports by 50 percent would require an extra 500,000 barrels a day of production, which the banks predict will take six to 12 months.

U.S. crude inventories rose to 465.8 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday. Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI and the nation’s largest oil-storage, expanded by 299,000 barrels to 56.7 million, according to the Energy Department’s statistical arm.