The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 23, 2016. Change is week-over-week.
Crude oil: Easy come, easy go? Too soon to reach that conclusion, but a lot is riding on OPEC’s informal meeting slated for late September. Mere talk of possible announcement of production freeze has done wonders to crude oil, with spot West Texas Intermediate crude rallying 26 percent in a little over two weeks before coming under pressure this week. Oil bulls need results not just rumors for these gains to sustain.
Especially considering that at last Friday’s intra-day high spot WTI was a hair’s breadth away from the neckline of a potentially bullish reverse head-and-shoulders formation. Longs decided to lock in gains.
The EIA data for the week ended August 19th provided a good excuse.
Stocks rose. Crude inventory rose by 2.5 million barrels to 523.6 million barrels, gasoline inventory by 36,000 barrels to 232.7 million barrels, and distillate inventory by 122,000 barrels to 153.3 million barrels.
Crude imports increased 449,000 barrels per day to 8.6 million b/d.
Refinery utilization dropped one percentage point to 92.5 percent.
Crude production, however, fell slightly, by 49,000 b/d to 8.5 mb/d. Production peaked at 9.61 mb/d in the June 5th week last year.
Immediately ahead, it will be interesting to see if WTI longs can defend the 50-day moving average, which is two points lower.
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