5 Charts: Oil Coiling, EM At Key Test, Bullish Small Caps

 | Jan 31, 2017 05:58AM ET

Here are the regular five macro technical charts (going as far as individual commodities, currencies, bonds, and sectors, as well as the rest of the major indexes and benchmarks). No comments on anything except the technical/price developments (albeit we will typically cover the broader case in the Weekly Macro Themes where the technical and fundamental set up produce a compelling investment idea). Even if you're not technical analysis minded, it's a useful way to keep on top of trends in some of the main financial markets and as a prompt for further investigation:

In this edition we look at the range compression in Crude Oil, a bull flag setup in the Russell 2000, a key test for Emerging Markets, a symmetrical triangle formation in Biotech, and a bottom in Turkish Equities.

h2 /h2 h2 1. Crude Oil - Range Compression /h2
  • WTI crude oil is trading in a small symmetrical triangle formation.
  • Range compression can be seen in the squeeze in Bollinger® Band width and Average True Range to the lowest point than since the oil crash started.
  • Could be described as "coiling" and getting ready for a large move, the old saying "low volatility is often a good predictor of future higher volatility".

Overall technical view: WTI crude oil is undergoing range compression and a big move is likely soon