Oil Turns Flat at $49.00 ahead of Key Non-farm Payrolls
WTI crude oil future turned absolutely flat, trading around $49.00 mark, as market participants remain in wait-and-watch mood ahead of the NFP release.
Earlier during European session, oil prices were trading modestly higher but lacked bullish conviction in absence of any major fundamental trigger. Of late, the black gold lost the bullish momentum witnessed since the beginning of 2016 and have stagnated below $50.00/mark barrel.
In the prior trading session, prices remained volatile on news that OPEC member have not reached an agreement on setting a production ceiling, but managed to recover quickly after EIA reported that US crude stockpile fell 1.4 million barrels in the previous week.
Markets now wait for the release of the US labor market report for fresh impetus to determine near-term direction for the commodity.
Technical outlook
Jameel Ahmad, Chief Market Analyst ForexTime (FXTM) notes, "it is important to point out that the oil markets have been meeting sellers around $50 now for the past fortnight and this is currently seen as a "top" for the commodity. Until WTI concludes weekly trading above $50, we are going to be unable to trade any higher and this is the same as it was when WTI oil failed to conclude weekly trading above $35 a few months ago and the $42-$44 region a few weeks following. WTI Oil has found quite a stubborn support level between $47.20-$47.40 and following this would need to break below $44 cleanly for the markets to begin getting anxious that aggressive selling is likely to return as we saw following the previous meeting."
