Crude rangebound

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Yesterday morning, crude oil was retesting the upper level of a trading range which has been building since the beginning of this month. This meant that it was also continuing to consolidate with front-month WTI trading within a rough range of $80 to $77.50. The MACD on the daily charts for both WTI and Brent showed that downside momentum was flattening out, and that momentum was starting to turn up. Despite this, both WTI and Brent pulled back from resistance, indicating that neither is yet ready to break out to higher levels. At the same time, prices have found a floor, so the market is going to need a catalyst to shift out of its current range, whether to the downside or upside. It’s difficult to know where that could come from. Geopolitically, the conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine’s war with Russia have done little to affect prices. As far as demand growth is concerned, speculators are looking for signs to confirm that China’s economy has turned around, and want to see further evidence that there will be US rate cuts this year. Later today there’s the weekly inventory update from the US Energy Information Administration.