Selling Brent if the price rises to the level of $73.6 per barrel

Yesterday, the weekly data on U.S. stocks of crude oil and petroleum products were published.

The first to debut, as usual, was the American Petroleum Institute with its anticipatory estimate.

According to the data, inventories decreased to a negative level of -0.573 million barrels, while it was predicted that they would grow to 2.3 million.

Then, at the opening of the main session, government data was released. It confirmed another round of inventory declines, with a change of -0.515 million barrels.

In addition, negative values were demonstrated by refinery throughput (-0.031M), crude oil imports (-0.605M), and gasoline production (-0.259M).

The weekly refinery utilization rates fell from 1.8% to -0.4%.

In addition, today's Chinese manufacturing activity report added to the short-term upside for oil prices. The manufacturing PMI rose to 50.1 from the previous value of 49.8. Although the growth is insignificant, but, as they say, the index crossed the psychological mark of 50.

All these recent data support oil prices, mainly in the short term, and partly in the medium term. Forecasts for a slowdown in global demand for the last quarter of this year and the whole of 2025 remain relevant.

From a technical point of view, within large time intervals the Brent price has been trying for the last three years to break through the round level of $70 per barrel. And it’s quite likely that it will at least pierce this level to $65.

According to the set of conditions, the situation now is extremely ambiguous. The number of factors “for” and “against” the growth seems to be the same.

If we consider the medium-term bearish scenario as the main one, it’s better to sell Brent after the price tests the above-lying level of $73.6 per barrel.

The final recommendation is to sell Brent from the level of 73.60.

The profit could be fixed at the level of 72.60. The Stop loss could be placed at 75.00.

The volume of the opened position should be set so that the value of a possible loss, defined with a protective stop order, doesn’t exceed 1% of your deposit.