Running out of gas? US crude oil down to $79.91 (-0.87%)

During a 6 day uptrend, WTI crude gained a total of $6.24, or 7.45%. Now turning against its recent performance, after closing at $80.61 yesterday, US crude oil opened today at $80.37, to be greeted by bearish sentiment that overshadowing today's price action. Irrespective of the bearish mood, US crude oil retains a distinct $79.83 to $80.55 daily range.

United States Crude Oil Inventories released earlier showed a marked improvement to -3.74 million from the preceding data of -7.49 million, but fell short of the -2.33 million figure forecast by a consensus of market analysts.

Amid the market gloom, United States ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI (Mar) came out at 51.2, while a consensus of analysts was expecting 54.5. United States ADP Nonfarm Employment Change (Mar) released yesterday at 12:15 UTC with a figure of 145,000, while the previous figure was 261,000.

A "bearish engulfing" pattern — a scenario when a larger red candle engulfs a smaller green candle, at the top of a prevailing uptrend. Typically this is a signal of lower prices in the near term. WTI crude's upper Bollinger Band® is at $82.28 which indicates a further downward move may follow. On the other hand, note that US crude oil could begin to recover as it approaches significant support, now 25 cents away from $79.66. Dipping below could be an indication that further losses are ahead.

Following today's unexpected losses, extensive multifactorial technical analysis forecasts WTI crude to buck against its prevailing uptrend and begin to dip lower in the short term. With all probabilities considered, the WTI crude is expected to attract significant bearish sentiment in the coming days.

Looking ahead, ongoing depreciation may be prolonged as United States Non Farm Payrolls projected to come out at 240,000 — worse than previous data of 311,000; data will be released tomorrow at 12:30 UTC. United States Initial Jobless Claims projected to decline to 200,000 while previous data was 198,000; data will be released today at 12:30 UTC.

Furthermore, United States Unemployment Rate figure is projected at 3.6. It previously stood at 3.6; data will be released tomorrow at 12:30 UTC.

West Texas crude is now trading 33.97% below the significant high of $122.09 it set around 9 months ago.