Crude oil settled at $72.73

The price of WTI crude oil futures are selling at $72.73. That is up $0.11 or 0.15%.

Looking at the hourly chart below, the price has been trending below its 100 hour moving average (blue line on the chart below) at $73.45 currently. Staying below that level kept the sellers more in control.

The price also is trading back below the 50% of the move up from the December low to the January high. That level comes in at $73.84.

Going forward it would take a move back above the 100 hour moving average and the 50% retracement to tilt the short-term bias back to the upside.

On the downside the price did dip below its 61.8% retracement and $72.21, but that break was short-lived. Getting back below that level and staying below that level would increase the bearish bias and likely lead to more downside probing.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.