While markets should be celebrating the better than expected non-farm payroll data released on Friday, it looks like there is a bit of a hangover in the market. Uncertainty over Greece is probably to blame.

WTI crude oil declined by 2% over the past week. A very bearish inventory report on Wednesday sent the WTI price plummeting below the “head & Shoulders” neckline where it stabilized. After testing key support at $95.50 WTI bounced after the good jobs data out of the USA. Despite the good jobs data we are concerned over the weakening demand for crude and refined products from the world’s largest oil consumer.

As mentioned above, the neckline of the head & shoulders formation was breached, but the market bounced back above. Technically there is no clear trend for the near term although a bearish undertone persists where new lows are made along with lower highs. A bounce is possible back up to $100 but at that level we prefer to sell, looking for a break of $95 and possibly $93 to the downside.

We expect a range of $93-100 for the rest of the week.

When the Rand broke the R7.68/$ level last week it rapidly fell to the R7.5 level as predicted. Better than expected economic data from many countries, including the USA increased the appetite for risky assets and currencies.

R7.68 will now become resistance, while support is at R7.5. We do not expect this range to hold for long as we believe the Rand will either strengthen more to the R7.3 level or fall back to the R8 level where it has been trading since November last year. The path of least resistance will be a fall back to R8/$, but a favourable outcome in Europe can send the local currency much stronger.

We expect a range of R7.68-7.95/US$ for the rest of the week.

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