- Crude Oil spiked higher on Wednesday before falling back again.
- WTI climbed to $80.00 before backsliding into $78.50.
- Midweek Fedspeak sends Crude Oil up then back down.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) US Crude Oil rose to its highest bids in a week after US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell noted that the Fed doesn’t see an increased risk of recession in the US economy. WTI quickly reverse course and pulled back down into the $78.50 region, but barrel bids remain in the green on Wednesday after Energy Information Administration (EIA) Crude Oil Stocks Change came in below expectations. This adds to a smaller-than-expected increase in US barrel counts from the American Petroleum Institute (API) late Tuesday.
Fed Chair Powell testified before the US Congressional House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday in the first of a two-day Q&A session on the Fed’s Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report. Fed Chairman Powell noted that he doesn’t see a high risk of a recession in the US economy this year, and that policy easing should begin later this year as long as inflation continues to ease towards the Fed’s 2% target.
Jerome Powell Speech: Fed Chair doesn’t see elevated risk of recession
Despite a temporary pop in interest rate cut expectations, markets are trimming their risk appetite hopes ahead of Friday’s US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) labor figures, which are expected to soften to 200K for February compared to January’s 11-month peak of 353K.
According to the API late Tuesday, the US Weekly Crude Oil Stock for the week ended March 1 grew by a scant 423K barrels, down from the forecast 2.6 million increase and well below the previous week’s addition of 8.428 million barrels. The EIA’s own Crude Oil Stocks Change for the same period added 1.367 million barrels to the week-on-week count, below the 2.116 million forecast and easing back from the previous week’s nearly 4.2 million barrel surplus. Easing barrel counts have bolstered hopes that US refining will begin to eat away at Crude Oil supplies filling the pipeline, but only enough to keep WTI in the green by about a percent after peaking at 3.25% bottom-to-top for the day on Wednesday.
WTI caught a clean bearish rejection from the $80.00 handle on Wednesday, tumbling back into $78.50 after rallying three and a quarter percent from the day’s low near $77.50. US Crude Oil still remains in the green for the day, up around a full percent from the day’s opening prices near $77.72, but near-term momentum rests in the hands of the sellers with an intraday technical floor at the 200-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) near $78.00.
Daily candlesticks continue to get hung up on the 200-day SMA at $77.85, and $80.00 per barrel is firming up into a signficant resistance zone.
