🔼 Oil prices resume climb with Middle East in focus
Oil prices launched this week's trading with a big bullish price gap in response to the surprise Hamas attack on Israel over the weekend. As the next few days showed that the conflict is likely to be contained to Israel and Gaza Strip and will not cause instabilities across the broader Middle East region that accounts for around a third of global oil supply, crude prices started to erase Monday's gains.
However, Israel ordered civilians in the northern part of Gaza Strip to evacuate to the southern parts of the enclave, raising concerns that feared Israeli ground invasion may begin soon. This has drawn condemnation from leaders of Arab countries, sparking fears that the conflict may eventually spread across the region. Those fears seem to be playing a key role in today's crude price jump with investors going long oil in anticipation of escalation of hostilities over the weekend.
Taking a look at Brent (OIL) chart at H1 interval, shows that sellers managed to almost completely fill Monday's gap yesterday before prices started to rebound off the $85.50 per barrel area. Strong upward move that can be observed today pushed OIL above resistance zone marked with 38.2% retracement of a recent downward impulse as well as above Monday highs. The next resistance level to watch is marked with 50% retracement in the $89.50 area.
Source: xStation5