The oil bears are gaining leverage over the bulls as confidence in the stability of crude prices continues to wane. Oil prices traded above $50 per barrel for most of the first quarter, falling back into the $40s in March, although it quickly rebounded back above $50 in April. The high level of OPEC compliance has surprised skeptical market analysts who predicted plenty of cheating, so the cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day from OPEC, plus smaller cuts from a slightly less compliant non-OPEC group, have put the market on a course towards balancing, albeit at a painfully slow pace. Global inventories have begun declining even if U.S. stocks are still at exceptionally high levels. An extension of the OPEC deal would put the icing on the cake, taking the market back to normal levels in the second half of the year, as the IEA recently predicted . […]