Spot WTI ends on Wall Street firmly in the green, targets set on $58

West Texas Intermediate crude spot prices travelled over 4% higher on Tuesday between a low of $54.23bbls and a high of $57.43bbls while September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange, added $2.17, or 4%, to settle at $57.10 a barrel. this was the best finish for a front-month contract since July 31, all thanks to a drop of a geopolitical headline that seems to open the door back up for a solution to the Chinese US trade dispute, or at least ajar. 

Meanwhile, the weekly U.S. petroleum supplies from trade group the American Petroleum Institute is on tap on the hour while the EIA will issue its own report early Wednesday which generally gets better attention and which is expected to show a decline of 2.7 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended Aug. 9. 

US CPI meets market expectations

The US Consumer Price Index came in line with market expectations in July at 0.3% m/m, pushing annual inflation up 0.2%pts from June to 1.8%:

"Core inflation (ex food and energy) was a touch stronger than expected, also at 0.3% m/m, which saw the annual measure lift to 2.2% from 2.1% in June. While there appears to be some temporary strength in the details (airline fares, tobacco), two consecutive 0.3% m/m rises for core inflation may give some policy makers cause to believe inflation pressures are a touch stronger than previously assumed," analysts at ANZ Bank explained. 

WTI levels

Technically, the bulls were holding just above the 50% retracement of the late Dec to 2019 range and took on the cluster of the 20, 50 and 200 daily moving averages to bust through both the 56 and 57 handles. There is room from here for a recovery to the 58 handle to meet trend line resistance. On the flip side, bears can target a break of the 50% reversion of the day's move at 55.80.