The market for crude oil has been a bit noisy at this point in time but still seems as if it is trying to find a “summer range.”
Crude oil markets are a little bit soft in holiday trading. The 200-day EMA has been offering support for some time now, and that was more of the same action that we had seen on Monday.
Keep in mind that Monday is Presidents’ Day in the United States, so that will have a major influence on a lack of volume and liquidity in this market. The crude oil market continues to see various areas of interest. Quite frankly, I think right now it’s basically a larger zone between $62 on the bottom and $65 on the top here in the light sweet crude market.
The Brent market is very sideways as well as it looks like the 200-day EMA is going to offer support, with $70 being a potential ceiling and possibly even a target to the upside. If we break down, the $65 level could be a support level as well in this market, as it continues to mirror what we see in the other grades of crude oil.
Keep in mind that there are questions about oversupply and lack of demand. There are also questions about tensions between the United States and Iran. Then again, this is a market that tends to find ranges to trade into and you can just make an argument that maybe we’re trying to drift a little higher as we head towards summer.
With that being said, you have to keep in mind that we’re already trading April contracts. That means more driving, that means more demand. The fact that we jumped a little bit and then started consolidating could be a hint that we’re trying to find the summer range.
Chris is a proprietary trader with more than 20 years of experience across various markets, including currencies, indices and commodities. As a senior analyst at FXEmpire since the website’s early days, he offers readers advanced market perspectives to navigate today’s financial landscape with confidence.