The longer term recovery for oil which peaked in the $52 per barrel area last month, is now reversing once more and picking up bearish momentum ahead of the weekly oil inventories due for release later today, as both the technical and fundamental picture help to drive prices lower once again.
For longer term traders and investors in oil, as we come to the end of another month with the latest weekly oil inventories now posted, it is once again the weekly and monthly charts that provide insight and context for the future trends.
The word that comes to mind to describe the price action on the daily WTI oil chart is ‘stately’ with crude oil continuing to move higher in a series of small rallies then punctuated with a pause point and further consolidation.
When considering such as bearish chart as for crude oil, it’s interesting to play a mind game and consider it as perhaps a stock chart – an Enron or a Worldcom, and the prospect of oil going to zero.
For oil prices, the new year could hardly be described as happy, as the relentless decline in prices continues, with December’s pause now starting to fracture, as February’s WTI contract picks up downside momentum.
These are interesting times for oil traders and speculators with Friday’s OPEC meeting in Vienna now on the horizon, and the question that will then be answered is whether the group will cut output to stem the supply glut that is now increasingly having to be held offshore around the oceans of the world.
One of the many factors used to decide whether a central bank should or should not raise interest rates is inflation, of which energy is a main contributor, and given the extended bearish trend for oil prices at present this aspect of the decision making process is likely to remain sharply in focus.
When considering the chart for crude oil, there is really only one question to answer and it is simply this – how low can it go! And to answer that particular question we need to consider the charts across a variety of timeframes.
Of the currencies likely to be in focus this week, I really did not expect the week to start with a further move lower for the Loonie (and the Canadian economy) which have both been badly affected by falling oil prices (USO, quote) .
As speculative commodity traders, there are few occasions when it is hard not to make money, and certainly at present we have several stand out opportunities. These opportunities are rare, but when they occur, it’s time, as they say to ‘fill your boots’.
