Crude Oil Price Punished Ahead of Fed on Recession Fears. Will WTI Push Lower?

Crude oil tanked in the North American session yesterday but has steadied so far through Asian trade with the US Dollar broadly weakening going into Wednesday.

The WTI futures contract remains under US$ 72 bbl while the Brent contract has a handle of US$ 75 bbl.

Risk assets went out of favour while gold and Treasuries went higher as the mood darkened on fears that there might be more US banks with weak balance sheets.

Recession fears appear to be swirling after weak US jobs and factory orders data ahead of the Fed’s rate decision later today.

Gold is eyeing off US% 2,020 an ounce while the yield on the benchmark 2-year Treasury note is back under 4%.

Regional banks bore the brunt of the woes with PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp finishing down -27.8% and 15.1 % respectively.

The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw losses of more the 1% in the cash session, but they have steadied so far today.

Following on from the Wall Street lead, APAC equity markets that were open today are all lower. Mainland China and Japan are on holiday among others.

Sentiment was further undermined by an activist investor, Hindenburg, releasing a report questioning the financial integrity of Icahn Enterprises that knocked its share price 20% lower.

After notable declines in the oil-linked Canadian Dollar and Norwegian Krone yesterday, all G-10 currencies are slightly firmer to varying degrees against the US Dollar today.

The Federal Reserve will be centre stage today, but the full economic calendar can be viewed here.

WTI CRUDE OIL TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

After filling in the gap created by the OPEC+ output cut announcement, WTI has continued lower. The price is below all period daily Simple Moving Averages (SMA) which may suggest that bearish momentum is evolving.

Support could be at the 78.6% Fibonacci Retracement level of the move from 64.36 to 83.53 at 68.46. Further down, support may lie at the previous lows of

On the topside, resistance could be at the nearby breakpoints in the 72.25 – 72.46 area, ahead of 73.93.