A little past 12:00pm on 12/23/2009 CL futures had some size rolling through the tape and delta charts (pic). It was not unbelievable size but definitely noteworthy considering light holiday volume. The session was trending up all morning and beginning to build value around 75.50. Normally when I see size like this with the CL futures price snaps off levels easily. This session the orders hit and price did not move a tick for quite a while. Could someone experienced with tape reading please explain what is going on here? Are the market makers holding too much short inventory with such a long biased session, trying to pin the offers in attempt to balance at better prices?
Given that price was not moving anywhere for the past ½ hour, then that type of volume/prints should be faded.