While the price of crude oil has risen due to current increased demand in China and US production concerns, the monthly technical trend is firmly heading lower.

Crude’s closing price last Friday was $79.34 per barrel, while the opening price on Wednesday was $79.81, with uptrend support.

According to Investing.com, the easing of Covid restrictions in China, which raised energy consumption, pushed the price of crude oil to three-week highs on Tuesday.

And the Arctic storms hitting the US affected the country’s energy production, also leading to the hike in the price of oil, it added.

“The price of crude oil will rise short term with the bitter winter in the US affecting the living and business conditions of Americans,” says PP Link Securities business manager Long Samnang, who has been offering Cambodian traders market analysis for more than 10 years.

Samnang, however, says the one-day and one-week charts were showing a longer-term downward trend, with oil prices moving in the range of $85.50 to $62.00 per barrel.

“There has been a consistent drop from the monthly high of $123.132 per barrel in June to the $83.33 per barrel in December, and technically the oil price will find it hard to reverse the monthly trend.

“It has the potential to slowly fall if the aforementioned fundamentals do not persist or there are no further large oil-related impacts,” Samnang says.

In the meantime, the strength of a US dollar fuelled by the raising of interest rates to tackle inflation continues to depress the oil price.

For this week’s trading recommendation, Samnang suggests investors sell crude in the range of $80-85 per barrel, setting the take-profit function at $72 per barrel and the stop-loss at $91.