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[Smittle]

Why oil jumping above $50 is actually disastrous for crude

By Sara Sjolin

Published: May 26, 2016 8:41 a.m. ET

Critical information ahead of the U.S. market’s open

Uh oh.

It happened — after weeks of dancing teasingly close to the $50 handle, Brent and WTI crude finally broke above the key mark.

And it’s been a long wait indeed. The last time Brent LCON6, +1.19% hugged $50 a barrel was back in early November, and it hit a 12-year low in the time since then, slumped to about $27 in January.

But since the winter, both Brent and West Texas Intermediate have staged a remarkable rebound, scoring gains of around a whopping 80%. Not bad for any asset class, this whole low-yield world considered.

Few predicted such a sharp comeback — definitely not Dennis Gartman, publisher of The Gartman Letter, who famously said oil wouldn’t even hit $44 in “my lifetime.” Nor the International Energy Agency, which warned at the start of the year the oil market “could drown in oversupply.”

As blogger Valueplays over at ValueWalk puts it: “Gotta love it ... as I’ve said before, oil is the only thing I know of that can go from glut to shortage in the blink of an eye.”

Enough with the history — traders are losing no time in moving on. The question this morning: Where will oil prices go next? Craig Erlam from Oanda says now we should be watching for $50 to $55 a barrel. But crude may struggle to reach that range, according to our call of the day.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-oil-jumping-above-50-is-actually-disastrous-for-crude-2016-05-26