SEAT9K
Crude Oil Futures Technical Blog

December 2006 Archive

Disclaimer: This information does not constitute trading advice and should not be used to enter or exit this or any market

Crude Blog, Main Page

Sponsors

Ethiopian Airlines Africa's First 787 Arrives in 2008

Friday 29 December 2006, Weekly Chart
Open	62.60	High	62.60	Low	59.90	Close	61.05	Change	-1.36	Percent	-2.2%
Medium-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude prices moved lower during hte week, moving out of the recent consolidation zone. The stochastics look to turn south, so we would not be surprised if prices continued moving south. Although the 58.94 support level should prove formidable, the stochastics have recovered enough to make a go of it. Until this price level is broken, however, we remain neutral.
Friday 29 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	60.20	High	61.20	Low	59.90	Close	61.05	Change	+0.52	Percent	+0.9%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved lower at the outset of Friday, but moved higher later in the day to close up, leaving a possible reversal pattern on the chart. The stochastics were very oversold, and the bears could not overcome the support level of 60.09 or the psychological 60.00 barrier. We would expect prices to react higher on the next session, but remain neutral.
Thursday 28 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	60.58	High	60.85	Low	60.05	Close	60.53	Change	+0.19	Percent	+0.3%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved slightly higher on Thursday, but tested the support level of 60.09 as well as the psychological 60.00 level. With the stochastics at oversold levels, we would not expect prices to move much more south on this wave. We remain neutral.
Wednesday 27 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	60.70	High	61.15	Low	60.25	Close	60.34	Change	-0.76	Percent	-1.2%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Another down day for Crude, with prices closing near the bottom of the day's range. With the stochastics getting oversold, we would expect the 58.94 support level to hold; there is likely a lot of buying pressure building up at that point to prevent prices from reaching new lows. Until we get a solid close below 58.94, we remain neutral.
Tuesday 26 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.60	High	62.60	Low	60.54	Close	61.10	Change	-1.31	Percent	-2.1%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved sharply lower on Tuesday, falling out of the recent pattern, leaving an oddly-shaped double-top on the chart. With prices closing below the support level of 61.50, we would look for prices to fall down to at least 58.06, which would be below the recent low of 58.94. We do note, however, that the stochastics have moved sharply lower, and may be too low to reach 58.06 right away. We remain neutral until prices move out of the recent price consolidation.
Friday 22 December 2006, Weekly Chart
Open	63.45	High	64.15	Low	62.10	Close	62.41	Change	-1.68	Percent	-2.6%
Medium-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved lower this week, trending downwards since the recent high of 64.84. The stochastics have recovered enough to allow a move down, although we remain neutral.
Friday 22 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.80	High	62.95	Low	62.10	Close	62.41	Change	-0.25	Percent	-0.4%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved lower on Friday, breaking out of the weakly-formed trading consolidation pattern. We remain neutral.
Thursday 21 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.30	High	63.35	Low	62.30	Close	62.66	Change	-1.06	Percent	-1.7%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Thursday crude moved lower by more than $1/bbl, closing near the bottom of the range of the tightening trend forming on the chart. A breakout might propel prices lower, but the real test will be if prices can get below 58.94. We remain neutral.
Wednesday 20 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.75	High	64.15	Low	63.25	Close	63.72	Change	+0.26	Percent	+0.4%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Wednesday, crude closed up slightly higher, but the consolidation of recent continues. We have drawn a consolidation pattern on the chart based on recent activity, and remain neutral.
Tuesday 19 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.50	High	64.00	Low	62.40	Close	63.46	Change	+0.67	Percent	+1.1%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       More consolidation in the crude markets, although the range seems to be tigtening a bit. We may have a triangle formation in the works, but will wait for more activity to confirm. We remain neutral.
Monday 18 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.45	High	63.50	Low	62.65	Close	62.79	Change	-1.30	Percent	-2.0%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       The bulls failed to extend Friday's strong close, and crude closed down 2% on Monday. We continue to see consolidation at play, and remain neutral.
Friday 15 December 2006, Weekly Chart
Open	62.74	High	64.15	Low	61.50	Close	64.09	Change	+0.92	Percent	+1.5%
Medium-term Opinion: Neutral       Prices fell early in the week, but recovered strongly, leaving a possible reversal pattern on the chart. However, we are far from changing our opinion to bulling after the sharp fall in prices since August. We remain neutral.
Friday 15 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.20	High	64.15	Low	63.00	Close	64.09	Change	+0.76	Percent	+1.2%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude moved higher on Friday, closing at the very top of the day's range. We continue, however, to see this recent action as a sideways trend, and maintain our neutral position until we see some break above 65 or below 58.94.
Thursday 14 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.05	High	63.60	Low	63.00	Close	63.33	Change	+1.16	Percent	+1.9%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude gapped higher on the opening, and traded in a narrow band for the rest of the session, closing up over $1/bbl on the day. As prices are still within the recent range of 58.94 to 64.79, we maintain our neutral position.
Wednesday 13 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	61.65	High	62.55	Low	61.65	Close	62.17	Change	+0.18	Percent	+0.3%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral We have switched to the February contract.       An inside trading range for crude on Wednesday, with prices trading within the range of the previous session. We maintain our neutral stance, but not that the downward sloping trendline, which originally appeared to be part of a flag formation, seems to be providing strong resistance to the bulls.
Tuesday 12 December 2006, February Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.50	High	62.90	Low	61.50	Close	61.99	Change	-0.37	Percent	-0.6%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral We have switched to the February contract.       Crude prices continued to trend lower on Tuesday, closing back below the trendline. We will maintain our neutral position until prices close below the recent low of 58.94, but we do note that the stochastics have crossed, which is a bearish indicator.
Monday 11 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	61.60	High	62.15	Low	61.05	Close	62.22	Change	-0.81	Percent	-1.3%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude prices fell again on Monday, dropping below the recent low and closing again at the bottom of the day's range. With the confirmation of the small double-top formation, we are targeting prices down to 60.58. However, the formation is so small that until we move out of the current sideways trend we will maintain our neutral position.
Friday 08 December 2006, Weekly Chart
Open	62.70	High	63.65	Low	61.55	Close	62.08	Change	-1.40	Percent	-2.2%
Medium-term Opinion: Neutral       Prices failed to move higher, and ended the week with an inside range pattern. Although the bears might take some hope with the close near the bottom of the week's activity, we maintain our neutral position.
Friday 08 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.40	High	63.65	Low	61.95	Close	62.03	Change	-0.46	Percent	-0.7%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Prices gapped higher on the opening Friday, a reaction from Thursday's strong close, but the bulls failed near the recent high of 63.80, and prices fell lower in the afternoon, leaving a reversal pattern on the chart.       We have what could be a small double-top formation. If prices get below Thursday's low 62.19, we would expect prices to trend lower, targeting down to at least 60.58. We are, however, maintaining our neutral position for now, until prices break out of the trend between 57.80 and 63.80.
Thursday 07 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	61.95	High	62.65	Low	61.55	Close	62.49	Change	+0.30	Percent	+0.5%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Another day of consolidation for crude. However, there are some signs that prices will move higher over the next few sessions, and perhaps accelerate higher.       We have indicated a flag formation on the chart. This formation is often a pause in the direction that prices were previously moving, and with Thursday's reversal day, and the pullback of the overbought stochastics, this would indicate that prices could move higher. We'll wait for a close above the recent high of 63.80 before changing our opinion to bullish.
Wednesday 06 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.43	High	63.00	Low	61.85	Close	62.19	Change	-0.24	Percent	-0.4%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       An inside trading day on Tuesday, with activity without the range of Monday's activity. The consolidation continues, and we maintain our neutral position.
Tuesday 05 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	63.00	High	63.20	Low	61.55	Close	62.43	Change	-0.01	Percent	-0.0%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Monday's activity was a day of consolidation, with prices moving sideways. We maintain our neutral position, although we see signs that prices could move either south (due to overbought stochastics) or north (due to support at the trendline). We're looking for some direction in the trend.
Monday 04 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.70	High	62.80	Low	61.90	Close	62.44	Change	-0.99	Percent	-1.6%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       Crude traded lower on Monday, closing down almost $1/bbl. With the stochastics overbought, and the 63.60 resistance holding, we are maintaining our neutral position, but expect prices to trend lower over the next few sessions.
Friday 01 December 2006, Weekly Chart
Open	59.70	High	63.80	Low	59.55	Close	63.43	Change	+4.19	Percent	+7.1%
Medium-term Opinion Changed to Neutral       Trading moved sharply higher this week, closing up over $4/bbl. With prices closing above the 18-day moving average, we are changing our opinion to neutral, looking for the next entry point.
Friday 01 December 2006, January Contract, Daily Chart
Open	62.85	High	63.50	Low	62.30	Close	63.43	Change	+0.30	Percent	+0.5%
Near-term Opinion: Neutral       The day's range was lower after Thursday's gap up, giving some hope to the bears, but with the end of trading at the top of the day's range, we must maintain our neutral position. Again, some short-term traders may enter the market based on the bet that prices will gravitate lower to the recent low of 57.80, but for our longer-term outlook we remain neutral.