What's looking bullish in the USO chart for crude oil

We've been tracking oil for a long time, and about two weeks ago identified that the exchange-traded fund, USO, reached a triangle target. It's been up since then, and a couple of days ago we discussed the pattern and how it could confirm as a bullish setup. Yesterday, it set up looking positive, but it was really today that looked very good. It vaulted decisively above the highs of the past two days, and above the downtrend channel line. Looks like it closed right at the second (middle) green horizontal line, and on good volume. The volume bars show that a pattern of good volume on up days, and lighter volume on the down days since putting in that low.

Front-running the trade based on the triangle target being met is one style, and another, more conservative investment/trading style is to look for a confirming pattern. Well, that's how I see the pattern now. So I've got confidence about looking for higher prices. For now, I've got the Fibonacci retrace levels marked off for upside objectives, and will also track the Elliott Wave pattern for clues as it progresses.

For proper trade management, one should always use a good stop loss, and often people discuss where to place it. For now, my personal recommendation is just under 23.53 on the USO chart, the most recent swing low. The classic stop loss level for this setup is 22.74, but that's a bit low, and my personal experience is that if this setup is working then it has no reason to revisit the most recently swing low ~23.53.

Seems fair to think that this nice move in oil had a lot to do with the general markets livening up today - but for that matter, the equities markets had been getting to oversold levels. As you can see on the QQQQ chart I posted earlier today, equities had also touched down to the bottom of the downtrend channel line and therefore became due for a bounce on that chart pattern basis too. Oil can be strong but it cannot alone prevent the general markets from a new low, assuming as I believe that is what's due for the markets when the time is right.