The strength of USD remains the main trading theme of this week, even if overnight trading session brings modest rebound. EUR/USD remains well below 1.2180, USD/JPY stopped at 109.30. NZD continues to be the weakest, falling to 0.7060. Yields of 10-year US bonds this morning are at 3.0240 percent.In addition, the market participants still have several hours of calm trade waiting for the ECB decision.
On Thursday 26th of April, the main event of the day is the European Central Bank interest rate decision which is scheduled at 01:30 pm GMT. The other important data are Durable Goods Orders and Unemployment Claims from the US and Trade Balance data from New Zealand.
Crude Oil analysis for 26/04/2018:
Crude oil inventories grew last week by 2.17m bbl, or two times more than reported in the API report yesterday (1.1m bbl). Analysts' forecasts, whose median showed a drop of 1.27 million barrels, turned out to be completely wrong. Petrol inventories increased by 884k barrels, while stocks of distillates dropped by 2.61m barrels. Today's oil prices are rising again as speculation intensifies that the US will bring back Iran's sanctions. Evidence of strong demand and declines in extraction in Venezuela are factors that help in growth. WTI oil grows by 0.5 percent. over 68.3 USD.
Let's now take a look at the Crude Oil technical picture at the H4 time frame. The market is still trading close to the recent swing high at the level of 69.55. Nevertheless, the intraday technical resistance at the level of 68.46 has not been violated yet, so the rally might be capped around this level and consolidate further. The nearest support is seen at the level of 67.11, 67.11 (50% Fibo) and 66.86. The momentum is still hovering around its fifty level, indicating neutral market conditions.
