The WTI Crude Oil markets went back and forth during the session on Monday, but as you can see they really didn't get too far in either direction by the end of the day. Granted, the range was fairly wide, but it's the close that matters, and as you can see we really didn't decide much.
I suspect that the only thing that we decided is that we are still stuck in a trading range between the $103 level, and the $109 level. Because of this, it's obvious that this market needs to consolidate up in this general vicinity, and because of that, I think that this is a short-term traders market at best right now.
On top of that, you have to keep in mind that we are in the slowest months of the year, due to the lack of volume. The lack of volume will keep larger traders out of the market as most of them are still on holiday, and this of course will skew some of the price action as it doesn't quite work out as it should.
Range bound for the rest of the month
I believe that this market will basically stay in this range for the rest of the month unless something significant happens. Of course, there are always going to be some headline risks but in the end this market looks like it's not ready to go anywhere with any significant velocity. The candle itself for the Monday session tells me everything, just that we have no desire to "rock the boat" at this point. Because of that, the markets are probably best played through the options chains, or perhaps the CFD markets as you can keep the exposure at a minimum.
If we did somehow manage to break down below the $103 level, I think we would head straight to the $99 in relatively short order. On the other hand, if we managed to break above the $109 level, we will probably struggle at $110, simply because of the large round psychologically significant number. In the end though, I would suspect that you will have to keep your stop losses very tight.