Wednesday, February 1, 2012

What's up - er, down with crude oil?! Chart views of USO, $WTIC

Crude oil has been staggering up to and falling back from resistance for a long time now. Then over the past couple of weeks, it was making a pattern that could have been a bullish descending wedge (ending diagonal triangle) that would send it thrusting upward in a new wave significantly higher. But wait - maybe it's a bearish (leading diagonal) instead?

Today I tweeted saying that the structure may not be a bullish wedge but a leading diagonal - for those who don't know Elliott Wave, just take my word for it right now. Main thing, the intraday drop today looks like it may have violated support, at least on the etf (USO) chart I was watching.

The daily chart of $WTIC shows from a bigger perspective that it's pulling down from resistance again, and the indicators are sagging. If it continues dropping and picks up speed, perhaps it's working on a "C" wave down to test $62 in order to complete a larger second-wave pullback. That would allow it to remain bullish and rise from $62 to higher highs and eventually new all-time highs.


As for my monthly chart, below - hey, I can still spin an uber-bearish scenario, but why bother - there is plenty of time to see how this plays out. For now, it looks like the KI$$ way to play it is to remain defensive (or at least not unprotected long) crude oil, unless it can manage to move above resistance. Resistance is definitely in the $103-104 area, and may also lie along the descending trendline that price briefly poked over.

If it really is going to drop, then it should at least test $86 for approximately half-way back to the most recent major swing lows. Then again, if it really is a wave C drop, the move should be quick and accompanied by the rest of the indicators joining to show real weakness. That's something that should be apparent, if this really is going to be a serious down-wave. Otherwise, we'll see price only gingerly test down to prior swing low levels, and interim retracements in the lower $90's and maybe mid-$80's.

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