Up $5.01 or 24.67%
WTI crude oil futures are settling the day at $25.32. That is up $5.01 or 24.67%. The percentage gain is the largest percentage gain on record. Of course it helps that the price is also near multi-year lows. Big dollar moves mean big percentage moves.
The search today was started when
- Pres. Trump tipped CNBC's Joe Kiernan that he expects Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production by 10 to 15 million barrels per day.
- That transition to Saudi Arabia calling for an emergency OPEC+ meeting, which then led to
- Russia saying they had not spoken with Saudi Arabia and
- Trump tweeting that he "expects and hopes" that they (Saudi and Russia) would be cutting by 10 million barrels, and "maybe substantially more". That led to
- Saudi's wanting US, Canada, Mexico, joining in the cuts, which led to
- Reports that the US does not know formal details of Russia/Saudi plans to cut supply.
- Finally Russia said it based its revised 2020 budget on $20 a barrel oil.
Despite the uncertainty from what is really going, the price did keep a lot of the gains on the day (obviously as it was as record percentage change), but the settlement price is well off the intraday high price at $27.39. PS. the low for the day reached $20.76.
What are the chart saying?
Looking at the daily chart above, the run to the upside to take the price above the 2016 low prices at $26.05 and $26.19. However the price has dipped back below those levels. In the new trading day it will take a move back above those levels to give buyers more confidence that the bottom is in.
Having said that, the contract remains well below levels that defined floors from the end of 2016 to the March 6 low at $41.05.
Those swing lows lows came in as low as
- $39.19, the low from August 2016, to
- $42.05, the low from 2017,
- $42.36 the low from December 2018 and
- $41.05 which was the low from March 6 right before the gap opening on March 9th.
So there is a lot of room to the upside to potentially explore. However, before you can look to those old swing lows, the price first needs to get back above the 2016 low at $26.05. If that cannot happen, are the buyers in control? Nope.
Drilling to the hourly chart below, it is not all that bad/negative. The price run up today DID trade and close above the 200 hour MA at $22.42. The last time the price traded above the 200 hour MA was back on February 24th at around the $52 a barrel level. That's a long time ago but the the price is at a much lower level so it is an easier hurdle. Nevertheless, it is something for the bulls/dip buyers.
So going forward, if that 200 hour MA level can now hold support, the buyers have something going for them. Move below that level, however, and that spells TROUBLE.
