The crude oil market has been rangebound for a couple of weeks, and it looks like the buyers are willing to step in and support the market for the time being. However, we have a very important Federal Reserve interest rate decision on Wednesday that could cause volatility.
The light sweet crude oil market initially did pull back a bit during the trading session on Tuesday in the very beginning of trading, only to turn around and show signs of life again. It looks at that point in time that we are just simply going back and forth. The $62 level underneath offers support, and I think that it is a support zone that probably drops down to the $60 level. The $65 level above is going to be resistance, with the 50-day EMA between here and there going the same.
So, I think we’re essentially compressing and we’re somewhat stuck. We do have an interest rate decision coming out of the Federal Reserve late on Wednesday that might have an influence on oil in, so much as it will have an influence on the US dollar, but I don’t know if it changes anything.
Brent looks very much the same. We are just simply hanging around the 50 day EMA, with the $65 level underneath offering significant support, and the $69 level above offering resistance. Ultimately, this is a market that I think continues to see a lot of back and forth and interest in both sides of this range. Whether or not we break out remains to be seen, but right now it just seems like a very neutral and flat market.
That has been the case for quite some time in oil, although we have changed the range here and there, it’s been very sideways. I just don’t see anything that keeps this from repeating the same pattern. We have well-defined support and resistance levels, so it is tradeable, but right now we’re right in the middle of everything.
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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.