Crude Oil Futures: Further retracement on the cards

CME Group’s preliminary readings for crude oil futures markets noted traders scaled back their open interest positions by more than 25K contracts on Monday, reversing five consecutive daily builds. In the same line, volume went down by around 473.5K contracts, extending the choppy activity seen as of late.

WTI looks capped by $70.00

Prices of the barrel of the WTI attempted a recovery at the beginning of the week. The bull run, however, was in tandem with diminishing open interest and volume, indicative that extra gains appear not favoured in the very near term and refocusing the attention on the downside instead. In the meantime, the key $70.00 mark per barrel continues to cap the upside, reinforced at the same time by the 200-day SMA.