WTI OIL,Tuesday May 22, 2012

Hi Traders,

It's actually Monday night: I've been asked to check the WTI OIL and I found the task a bit hard.

After taking a bit dive to $35.50 from $147.50 in 2008, the commodity is sitting now at $92 which is exacly 50%  of that range.

As you can see by the weekly chart below the WTI performed 3 waves up, reaching $115 (wave 3). Now the question is: why 3 waves only and not 5? A plausible explanation could be that it's now unfolding "major retracement wave 4" (out 5 waves up).

In its simplest espression, "major retracement wave 4" is a big zig-zag made of 3 to 5 retracement waves. The OIL so far performed 2 of those retracement waves and now it's trying to complete wave 3 down.

On its way down, it stopped on the most important support. Hence, it might bounce back for a while (rally) before resuming the downtrend and breakout the channel on the downside.

If this happens, the target could be $97-$98.5. Then down again to $80. Also, the channel was touched 4 times and this prelude to a bounce back (rally) usually followed by a breakout on the downside.

This could be confirmed by the 3 red candles down that usually indicate a bullish reversal formation named "the ladder bottom".

The daily chart below confirms the wave count (1-2-3 in red). There might a attempt to reach a low around $91.67 as the last bit of the wave is still missing.

This is confirmed by the 4hour chart below which shows 8 waves out of 9, The 9th should be the last leg down and it usually shows a reversal candlestick (which is not there yet). The channel was touched 4 times and this is the prelude to a breakout.

The 1 hour chart below show the last le down missing (wave 5). It also dispays 4 contact point in the channel. hence there could be a breakout soon.

Note the last orange numbers 1-2-3 in the 15min chart below where the last wave 3 is still missing at level $91.67 or lower. That could be our reversal point.