Crude Finally Finds Buyers

"There's just a very bearish situation," says Lesh, noting "skepticism" among market participants, with some short-covering fueling the slight advance.

That's the sort of talk that has one observer thinking the market could be reaching an inflection point.

"It's a liquidation," says Woody Dorsey, a behavioral market strategist at Market Semiotics. "What we have at the end of 'a liquidation' is a capitulation. And I think we are very close to that," meaning oil prices might bottom out shortly.

He notes that oil is still in a secular bull market but is suffering from the effects of sector rotation as fund managers switch money away from energy and into agricultural futures.

Turning to the energy patch, Oppenheimer initiated coverage of small-cap EV Energy Partners(EVEP Quote) with a buy rating and a stock price target of $27 a share. The shares rose 0.2% to $23.18.

CIBC World Markets kicked off covering Spectra Energy(SE Quote) with a rating of sector-perform and a target of $28. The stock lost 1.4%.

Elsewhere, BP(BP Quote) rallied 5% on news that CEO John Browne would step down in July, 18 months sooner than had previously been anticipated.

Shares of Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote), the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, were up 2.4%.