As the Brent crude crosses the level of $70/bbl briefly, it has been one of the sharpest rises in oil prices in the last 3 years. There are some basic crude oil signal providers that give out crude oil buy sell signals. In fact, the price of Brent crude has already touched a 3-year high as is depicted by the chart below..

Since the price of crude started correcting in November 2014, the downtrend continued till January 2016 when crude oil touched a low of $35/bbl. From the lows of $35/bbl in January 2016, the price of Brent Crude has doubled to $70 by January 2018. That is a return of 100% in 2 years implying CAGR returns of 36% annualized over the last 2 years. This makes crude one of the best performing asset classes in the world (we are not yet considering Bitcoins). So what have been the triggers for this sharp rise in oil prices and is a further uptrend in oil possible in 2018? Here are 5 Best oil trading signals.

OPEC quota appears to have worked well..
January 2018 also marks the first anniversary of the OPEC quotas. At the OPEC meeting in November 2016, the OPEC members as well as some friendly oil-rich countries like Russia and Mexico decided to restrict the output of oil. There has been a daily output cut of 1.8 million barrels and that cut has been sustained. In fact, the latest OPEC reports confirm that the compliance by the OPEC member countries has been unquestionable. This reduction of 1.8 million barrels in the market on a daily basis has literally shifted the demand/supply equation in favour of demand. The glut is now over and despite a surge in production in US shale; it has not been able to reverse the impact of this 1.8 million/bbl daily output cut. Already OPEC and Russia have pledged to continue the output cut till the end of 2018.

There has been a genuine pick-up in demand for crude oil..
The last one year has seen a genuine pick-up in the demand for crude oil. Firstly, the overall commodity cycle has gone through an upturn in the last 1 year with Chinese demand spurring a sharp rally in copper, zinc, aluminium and steel. Oil has also followed the trend as the chart depicts.