It seems like the markets, in general, are undecided. There are as many reports for the price to go up as there are for it to go down. All this uncertainty even makes me feel uneasy. Overall, I believe there are more reasons for oil to go down, mainly due to the USA-China trade war and global market slowdown. But, it is unknown how long the market can tank these forces. There haven’t been any significant news to push things either way, but one cannot predict the news. For example, there might be some miraculous force that ends the trade war.

Forecasting Checklist

• Oil industry news
  • Political Plays?
    • State of the Union address just happened. I could find anything consequential.
    • No major updates of the Venezuela sanctions affecting oil, but oil refiners should be looking for other sources. ^
  • Level of uncertainty?
    • Seems that this is pretty high. Described as the Oct ‘volatility nightmare’.
  • Upcoming events/meetings?
    • OPEC  – 18 April 2019 & maybe one in March
    • May – USA to redecide on Iran sanction waivers
• Check status of economies
  • Oil demand?
    • Unknown. This is dependent on the economy.
  • Oil supply?
    • “Crude inventories rose by 2.5 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 1 “
    • OPEC cut their supply of oil to the USA. ^
• Check other charts for movement
  • Gold
    • slight dip
• Technical analysis
  • TTM_LRC ranges
    • On a longer-term downtrend

The Forecast

Considering the situation, I am not confident enough to trade in oil. The premiums I would collect, aren’t attractive enough either. I would just hold on to my current positions.

For interest sake, the probability confidence level would be 85% that the price of WTI oil doesn’t go above $59  on 15/03/2019.