December crude’s month-long fall did sufficient damage to the longer-term charts to require a rally above $83 to undo it.  However, we’ll focus on the short-term picture to determine whether the bounce last Thursday from 72.16 is likely to show staying power. Steep as it was, it still fell a tad shy of the 76.62 target of the modest reverse pattern shown. Achieving it would still leave the futures two cents shy of generating an impulse leg with a leap above the external peak at 78.63 made last week on the way down. We’ll delay judgment until we’ve seen how buyers handle both resistances.