WTI December crude settles down 8.29% at $88.12 a barrel

The scale of the single-session drop, rather than the outright level, is the signal here: a move of this size concentrated in a narrow late-session window points to a repositioning event rather than a gradual shift in fundamentals. Because the contract is now within reach of prior October and September closes, those levels become the reference points that determine whether this reads as a retracement or a regime change. The open question is whether the selling persists into the next session or exhausts itself at those prior lows.