Bull-Bear Cycles in Crude Oil

This afternoon, I decided to take a look at the daily chart for CL.  I rarely ever look charts longer than the 1hour, but I must say, I was intrigued when I did.

I couldn't help but first notice the pattern of uptrends and downtrends with basic trendlines.  I marked these periods "bull" and "bear" respectively.

Then, I noticed that they seemed to be fairly consistent in regard to the time it took each cycle to complete.
The two completed bear cycles were 55 and 56 days.  The two bull cycles were 84 and 86 days.

The next thing I noticed was that each consecutive swing was less than the previous in terms of distance the price moved.  Over the 4 completed cycles in the picture (bear, bull, bear, bull) The distance of the swings were 27 points, 20 points, 16 points, and 13 points.

So there you have it for the current state.  It's a time of fairly evenly spaced bull moves, evenly spaced bear moves, and an overall declining volatility of major swings.

I don't have any particular plans to use this information in my day to day short-term trading, but it's certainly something to be aware of and do a daily check on.  I may add it to my pre-session routine.  The only drawback to doing this for a very short term trader such as myself, is getting an attachment to some kind of "view" that can filter what you see and cause you to be blinded by your own preconceived notions about the state of the market and what it "should do".

Trade well,

-IT7