Crude oil rallies sharplyCrude oil has rallied sharply today. Both Brent and WTI have created large bullish engulfing candles on their daily charts. These suggests that more buying could be on the way in the days ahead, as the previous selling pressure has been replaced by buying.
Today’s gains were driven by a sharper-than-expected drawdown in US oil inventories data.
The recovery began earlier in the day after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported last night that US oil inventories fell sharply, down by 4.44 million barrels for the week ending July 12. The previous week, the API had reported a 1.9 million barrel draw in crude inventories.
These figures were confirmed by official data released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA data showed an even more significant drop in oil stocks than the API data had indicated, with a decline of 4.9 million barrels last week. This unexpected drop partly explains the rally in oil prices today.
By Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at FOREX.com