Crude Oil Remains Choppy Inside the $10 Range

Today’s crude Oil market experienced significant fluctuations, with two rapid declines which were followed by rapid buying from buyers. We heard that Russia halted Oil supplies to Poland, while Goldman Sachs lowered its Oil forecasts. However, the market is primarily focused on China’s post-COVID demand for signs of a potential impact on the energy and Oil markets.

Despite the decrease in Oil prices, the CAD had a positive day yesterday, partially due to a nearly 7% increase in natural gas prices resulting from forecasts for colder weather, helped further by the USD weakness. USD/CAD fell to a low of 1.353os but then started to move higher again.

Looking ahead, the API report will be released later today, and there are suspicions that the numbers may have been leaked six hours early. It may be wise to either follow any unexpected market movements or avoid trading altogether, becuace many traders were burnt last week when crude Oil held the gains despite a large buildup in EIA inventories on Wednesday.

US WTI Oil H1 Chart – The 20 SMA Acting As Resistance

Can buyers push crude Oil above the 200 SMA?

Oil started to move higher in the early hours of the morning when markets opened in the Asian session yesterday, following the wekend closure, but buyers found it difficult to push the price of the US TI crude above the 200 SMA (purple) on the H4 chart. This moving average was acting as suppport earlier this month, but has turnd into resistance now that the price has slipped below all moving averages. So, we are looking to open a sell Oil singal if the price moves up there and the 200 SMA rejects buyers once again. Although, we will try to wait until the API private inventories report later in the evening.

US WTI Crude Oil Live Chart