In the short-term however you need to have reliable and credible indicators to provide guidance on timing whether you are long-term focused or short-term focused, and the two charts below provide an insight in that respect.  The first one shows how crude oil implied volatility will often spike around a market bottom, and so far it's been relatively tame - when/if it spikes we will become very interested from a contrarian point of view.  A similar and complimentary indicator is speculative futures positioning, which has indeed come down from extreme bullish levels, however it's still not quite at a capitulation point where we would become high conviction bullish on a contrarian basis.  So keep watching the indicators as buying opportunities may well present in the coming weeks.

Crude oil volatility has turned up after making post-crash lows, a pattern consistent with a fall in oil, and yet it has not spiked to the degree that it has in the past when the market is near a bottom.

Crude oil speculative futures positioning has come down a lot, but could go further, and should it go further it would start to build a contrarian bullish case.