WTI Oil options: Consolidation with downside bias
|WTI Oil/US Oil retreated from the high of $46.85 to $45.97 on Monday, thus leaving a lower high formation on the daily chart. The front-month contract currently trades around $46.16/barrel.
The options market activity suggests the traders are seeing oil roughly in the range of $43-$50 over the next couple of weeks.
The CME data shows the open interest in the out-of-the-money (OTM) - 43.00 put option rose by 5552 contracts. On the higher side, big additions are seen in the OTM calls - 50.00 call option +3148, 52.00 call option +2762. The total open interest in the call options jumped 11,943 contracts, while the open interest in the put options rose by 18,621 contracts.
The build up at the extremes - deep out-of-the money options as mentioned above - is likely to be call/put writing. Meanwhile, a big jump (+4449 contracts) in the OI in at-the-money (ATM) - 46.00 put option, suggests a bearish bias. Furthermore, the in-the-money (ITM) call options have not seen any notable jump in the open interest. Thus, traders could be betting on consolidation with a downside bias.
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