Yesterday’s Settlement: 65.16, down -1.13 [-1.70%]
WTI Crude Oil futures fell yesterday on comments from President Trump, and news that the Kremlin is potentially weighing an “air-truce” with Ukraine.
President Trump said on a CNBC interview early in the morning that “if energy goes low enough, Putin will stop killing.” (or in similar words). Oil markets sold off on the comments over fears the President would try to use oil prices to sway Putin into a ceasefire.
Later in the day, news broke that Russia was “mulling a possible air truce”. The truce would come in lieu of a full ceasefire or cessation of the war.
Despite the negative headlines, WTI Crude Oil held the 65.00 level, which gives us some faith in the bullish scenario. Our buy target for the week has been 65.00, which was clipped yesterday.
Today: 66.29 up +1.13 [+1.73%]
Futures are higher today on technical buying and secondary tariff fears. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow today for talks tomorrow with Putin and the Kremlin.
Markets are pricing in the possibility of secondary tariffs or sanctions being put in place on buyers of Russian crude. Tariffs are easier to “ignore” for foreign countries while sanctions are not. Be on the lookout for the threat of secondary Russian sanctions being threatened. This would be a much more bullish catalyst.
Technical Analysis:
Price action yesterday was not as bearish as I’d expect considering the bearishness of the news flow. The fact the 65.00 level has held this week in the face of OPEC+ accelerated output and India / China’s choice to ignore Trump’s new tariff threats has given us more confidence on the bullish bias.
Our buy target for the week has been the 65.00 region which was clipped yesterday. Sizing down and taking profits up near 67.00 is a decent option as we look to trade the tighter range we’ve settled into this week.
For intraday trading, our pivot and point of balance is set at..
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