On Wednesday, WTI crude fell 5% from a high of $65.33, breaking through $62.0 to an intraday low of $61.98, a three-week low since April 27, and a cumulative decline of 7.5% in the past two days. The risk of a "double top" on the daily line is increasing, which may be disadvantageous to the short-term trend of oil prices.

On the supply and demand side, the new round of political director-general meeting of the Iranian Nuclear Comprehensive Agreement Joint Commission on resuming implementation negotiations was held in Vienna, Austria. At present, there is more evidence that Iran's nuclear negotiations have made "good" or "significant" progress. The market generally expects that once an agreement is reached, Iranian crude oil exports will soon increase by 2 million barrels per day. ENRIQUE, the EU's political director, said the fourth round of Iranian nuclear talks had been concluded and would be resumed next week. If an agreement is reached, Iran could provide an additional oil supply of about 10 to 2 million barrels per day.

In terms of financial attributes, the minutes of the Fed meeting released in the early hours of Thursday (May 20) brought some hope to the dollar bulls. U.S. stocks closed mixed and Treasury yields rose, as the minutes showed that Fed officials were cautiously optimistic about the US recovery at the April meeting, while some officials hinted that they were willing to discuss a curtailment of bond purchases "at some point". The S & P 500 fell for the third day in a row, with energy and raw materials stocks falling the most, as commodity prices tumbled as inflation fears and fears of a contraction in monetary stimulus led to a collapse in commodity prices. As the economic recovery continues to advance rapidly, "a number of" Fed officials seem ready to start thinking about adjusting monetary policy, according to the minutes of the Fed's April meeting. Data released after the April policy meeting showed that the economic situation had changed.

Overall, global demand varies widely, with an improvement in demand in the West and a deterioration in the outlook for demand in Asia. This mixed situation exacerbates market volatility. Affected by negative factors such as the increase in inventories and the major progress in the US-Iraq negotiations, oil prices have declined in the short term. It should be noted that although Europe has relaxed its restrictions on the epidemic, India has recently declared Mucor mycosis an epidemic and has been hit by a hurricane, which has made it even worse for India, so that oil prices may continue to fall.

Looking ahead, the recent release of US economic data remains a top priority, especially for the performance of the labor market and inflation. At the same time, we also need to pay attention to the crackdown on commodities by the policies of the world's second-largest economy, where oil prices have limited room for further upside under the pressure of excessive rising global inflation. Investors can focus on the number of US jobless claims last week and the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, which is expected to provide more clues to the future direction of oil prices. The OPEC+ meeting will be held in early June, and as OPEC+ members are still in the stage of production cuts, the sharp fall in oil prices does not seem to be conducive to further production cuts. As a result, the OPEC+ may show a stronger determination to stabilize oil prices at the meeting, which is expected to provide the possibility for oil prices to remain high as a whole.

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