The only surprise at Sunday’s oil summit in Doha, Qatar, was that anyone could have been surprised.

Oil ministers from 16 oil-producing countries met in a much-hyped attempt to freeze crude production at current levels. Investors had viewed a production freeze as the best alternative to full-blown production cuts.

But the ministers came up empty because of the poisonous relationship between blood enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia had demanded that all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) support a production freeze. But since sanctions against Iran were lifted only recently and Iran desperately needs the money from increased oil production, even at low prices, that demand was a fantasy. Iran never even showed up.

That’s where the surprise came in.

At first, crude prices nosedived: Both Brent UK:LCON6 and West Texas Intermediate crude CLK26, plummeted 7% in early trading. But they rallied back to show only modest losses of around 1%, changing hands at around $40 a barrel at noon Monday. On Tuesday morning, both measures were up 1.5%.

Veteran trader JJ Kinahan, chief strategist of market structure and client advisory for TD Ameritrade, told me the market’s response was very positive for crude. “For those who are bulls on oil, it’s pretty nice that we came back above the $40 mark,” he said. “This $40 level is right now the new level of support.”

He also thinks oil has very strong long-term support around the recent lows: West Texas Intermediate closed above $26 a barrel on Jan. 20 and Feb. 11, according to the Energy Information Administration. (Not coincidentally, the latter also was the day the major stock market averages hit their recent lows.)

You can see that “double bottom,” which technicians view as bullish, on the following chart.

Trading Economics

The next chart shows how close the recent double bottom was to December 2008’s low, suggesting strong long-term price support in the $25-$30 area.

Trading Economics

“It’s hard to say that’s the bottom, but there’s been a heck of a lot of support there, based on what we’ve seen over the last 10 years,” said Kinahan. “It’s going to be hard to [go below there] because history says that’s where bigger buyers come in to the market.”

Here’s why I think the January-February double bottom will hold and mark the low for WTI this cycle.

First, the price decline that brought oil down to $26 was almost as deep, if not quite as sharp, as the sell-off after its July 2008 all-time closing high of $145.31 a barrel. WTI went on to lose 79% of its value, hitting a closing low of $30.28 just before Christmas of that year.

It then took 5 ½ years to hit its recent closing peak of $107.95 on June 20, 2014. From there, prices fell 76% to the February lows, about as big a drop as the 2008 price plunge.

Also, the Baker Hughes Rig Count, which measures the number of U.S. rigs currently producing oil and gas, has declined even more during the current oil price plunge than it did in 2008-2009.

Back then, it slid nearly 57% from its peak of 2,031 to 876 by June 2009 — and that was in the teeth of the Great Recession.

This time, the rig count plunged from 1,931 in September 2014 to 440 last week. That’s a 77% decline, and the number of operating rigs is about half of what it was at its low in 2009. My take: U.S. drillers have done a better job of cutting oil and gas production this time around.

So, unless we have a global recession, which I don’t expect, I don’t think production and prices will fall further than they already have. For what it’s worth, the EIA projects that WTI could average $38 a barrel this year and $50 a barrel in 2017.

“For crude I’d say $40 is an important level, but if you get below $36 things could turn a little bit nasty,” Kinahan told me. “That’s the level I think we need to keep in order to keep moving higher.” I believe that level — and certainly the January-February double-bottom lows — will hold.

But here’s a really key point: According to Kinahan, so far in 2016, crude-futures prices have an astonishingly high 86% correlation with futures on the S&P 500 Index. That’s almost one to one, and way above their typical 56% correlation.

Which means that if oil prices hit their lows in January and February, stock prices may have bottomed then as well.

So watch crude prices closely in the coming weeks. If they can maintain support levels or even rally, there’s a good chance stocks can move up and re-take their previous all-time highs in the months ahead.

Howard R. Gold is a MarketWatch columnist and founder and editor of GoldenEgg Investing, which offers exclusive market commentary and simple, low-cost, low-risk retirement investing plans. Follow him on Twitter @howardrgold.