After three days of going down, US crude oil is flat today, hovering around $75.5

After ending today at $75.72, today WTI crude went up to $75.67 before paring back gains and settling around $75.5 per barrel.

Uncertainty around WTI crude oil is reflected by published market data as United States Initial Jobless Claims published today at 13:30 UTC came out at 211,000, falling short of the 195,000 projections and continuing its decline from the previous 190,000 figure. Following a previous reading of 1.17 million, Crude Oil Inventories in United States released yesterday at 15:30 UTC fell short of the 395,000 figure expected by analysts with an actual reading of -1.69 million. United States JOLTs Job Openings (Jan) released yesterday at 15:00 UTC with a figure of 10.82 million, while the previous figure was 11.23 million.

Crude Oil made an initial breakout above its 50 day Simple Moving Average at $77.6, a potential indicator of a newly emerging bullish phase. WTI crude's upper Bollinger Band® is at $80.04 and the lower is $73.96. WTI crude oil is approaching key support, around 75 cents away from $74.75. Dipping below could indicate further losses are ahead while a failure to break below this level is likely to be seen positively by market bulls.

Despite muted price action in West Texas crude, chart analysis indicates it is positioned for a bullish run in the short term.

Meanwhile, mixed performances are seen in other Energy as Natural Gas is down to $2.48, losing 6 cents, after closing at $2.54 in the preceding trading session.

Furthermore, the market is looking at as things stand, upcoming United States Non Farm Payrolls data is projected to fall short of market expectations with newly published data of 205,000, following on from the preceding figure of 517,000. New data is set to be published tomorrow at 13:30 UTC. United States Unemployment Rate figure is projected at 3.4. It previously stood at 3.4; data will be released tomorrow at 13:30 UTC.

Approximately 8 months ago, US crude oil reached a significant high of $122.09 but has struggled to hold onto its gains and declined 37.98% since then.