Oil is trading lower today, with Brent (OIL) dropping 1.3% and WTI (OIL.WTI) pulling back 1.5% at press time. While there were no notable news from the oil market today, pullback in oil, and in risk assets overall, can be ascribed to the outlook for monetary policy. It seems that there is a shift in investors' expectations regarding interest rates. Namely, it looks like that markets are realizing that rate cuts may not be imminent and that central banks may need to keep rates higher for longer.
However, taking a look at OIL chart at H1 interval, we can see that there is also technical explanation behind the move lower today. Price made a number of attempts to break above a key, short-term resistance in the $83.50 per barrel area. However, all of those attempts failed and bulls surrendered. Price slumped below $82.60 swing area and continued to move lower. Declines were halted after OIL broke below the upward trendline and now an attempt to break back above it can be spotted. If bulls fail to regain control over the market, the major near-term support to watch can be found in the $82 area, marked with 23.6% retracement of a recent upward impulse as well as the 200-hour moving average. A break below $82 zone would pave the way towards 38.2% retracement in the $81 area.
Source: xStation5