Does the Crude Bounce Hold?

My guess is yes, the "bounce" holds, but not much more than that.

It's funny how you get in to things and they turn and backfire on you. I may be wrong, but I believe I recall the US reaching out to Saudi Arabia to boost production and try to starve the Russians out (as Russia is an oil exporter) in tandem with other measures, meant to cripple the Russian economy over the Ukraine situation.

However it seems our allies, the Saudis have also found they can crush the US shale oil industry in to virtual oblivion and wipe out any US / domestic competition. I doubt this is the way the story ends, there's too much money from the oil industry on Capitol Hill, but whatever may be launched as a counter-offensive will surely have unintended consequences as well.

The immediate question is what does this current oil bounce have for legs? I'd say there are some, but likely pretty short legs.

Here's what I see.

 There looks to be evidence that a base area was formed again at the start of the year, it looks like yesterday was a stop run and a head fake below that range as volume pumped up on the break, as did short term 3C signals, suggesting a small head fake move and an oil bounce.

If today's closing candle can engulf (close above yesterday's open), then this move has an even better chance, especially if volume picks up.

 This is the January range mentioned above, which looks like it had a decent positive divegrence; the break below and what looks like confirmation of a stop-run/head fake move with a positive divegrence on the break below support (stop run).

 USO 3 min shows the same thing, just with less detail.

As does the 5 min chart, which also shows the volume spike under the small range (stops hit).

 The fact there's a divergence out on the 10 min chart makes me think this bounce has a chance.

However as I have maintained from the start, this is no change in trend. This2 hour chart should make that very clear.

As for Crude (Brent) futures, there's similar recent confirmation as well.

5 min leading positive looks like confirmation of a head fake move/stop run that was accumulated.

7 min

And a very strong leading 15 min chart.

That's about as far as we go right now, but a 15 min chart can make for an impressive move.