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SAMT Blog

Oil running low on energy

26. August 2021, by Ron William
Technical Analysis

Oil is back on our technical radar, after a triggering a greater peak-to-trough drawdown than last March.  The 12% price drop is weighed by growing headwinds, most notably a confluence of price/time mean-reversion signals, coupled with waning macro indicators, amplified by delta variant concerns.


Overhead price resistance is strong on both WTI and Brent Crude, with the latter exhibiting over a decade-long trend resistance from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 (Figure 1). This offers useful context of oil’s “fall from grace” on our Global Ranking Model, alongside other economic sensitive markets such as Dr Copper.

Moreover, our timing filters warn of a pending top in both oil and broad risk-proxies. Figure 2 highlights Oil’s dominant 32-month cycle that signals further downside scope after the negative seasonality pattern of Sept-Oct.

Interestingly, the cross-asset relationship between equities and oil gave an early warning signal, after turning negative for the first time in four years. Traditionally the correlation is positive because oil demand often coincides with strong economic growth, which adds further support to the market.

Investors worried about inflation have naturally given closer attention to the impact onto the consumption-led economic rebound. However, our view is that inflation is likely transitionary, despite ...

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