Tag Archive for 'oil'

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Slick oil

Published on August 25, 2010, 10:34 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

One of those weird days when gold, oil and the dollar, along with stocks, were up! As expected Durable Goods and the New Home sales sucked. Unexpected was the big oil inventories build-up, which sunk oil prices. But, like the last time this happened in late May, traders saw opportunity and started buying oil futures. And like it has done all year, oil led a move to the upside for stocks.

Keep an eye on oil to see which way we go stockwise. If oil continues its bravery, watch UCO USO and ERX.

Semiconductors also had some oomph in its step, most likely with the help of AAPL and INTC, but also watch XLK and SMH.

The crash for the day belongs to golfer Jim Furyk: Jim Furyk is disqualified from Barclays for missing pro-am tee time. Gee if he traveled more often he would know wbout hotel wake-up calls! :cry:

Channeling

Published on August 22, 2010, 6:31 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Diving right from the git-go, the morning turned out to be a wait-and-see when low would be low enough. By noontime the low was hit and the slow climb up started and continued for the rest of the day. At one point all the indexes were green, but they couldn’t hold it. The Nasdaq was able to close in the green and the Russell was nearby but closed slightly red. I was disappointed that the markets weren’t more volatile for an options expiration….volume was down from yesterday also. Can’t really decide if Friday was bearish or bullish. :?

The S&P is still bouncing within this 3-month long channel.

If it’s going to obey the channel, it needs to bounce….a dead-cat or bull resumption bounce.

We’re in the summer doldrums and still have another 2 weeks to go. We’ve also had a lot of bad economic news but the market has been able to maintain itself within the channel. It still has not challenged the May, June or July lows….although it is trading below the 20- 50- and 200-day moving averages.

The semiconductors SOX had a good week, but we still need those banks BKX to show some enthusiasm. And oil sure could use a fire under its barrel.

Charts are very schizophrenic! Arguments can be made for a long and/or short position. Cash may be the position of choice, at least until the charts points one way….or the other. :idea:

Not much of a move

Published on August 3, 2010, 10:47 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Ok, it’s not what I would call a follow-through day, but it was a decent reaction to yesterday’s up move. Neither day had any volume, but today’s consolidation was on lower volume than yesterday’s explosion. So far, we’ll still sitting good for a continuing up move.

Asian markets are opening soft with the Nikkei down almost 2%, but S&P futures are still hanging around breakeven. Gold is trying to move up and oil is moving down.

Wednesday brings us the ADP Employment report at 8:15AM…..the predecessor to Friday’s big show. We’ll see if the markets deserve to continue its up move. Maybe oil inventories will help. The US$ levels are getting low enough that if it goes any lower, stocks may begin to worry. I’d actually like the $ to stabilize.

So much analysis, so little time. 8)

Getting ready…

Published on August 1, 2010, 9:49 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Stocks opened Friday way down after traders reacted to the GDP numbers, but soon began a journey on the way up after good PMI and Consumer Sentiment numbers. All the indexes closed very near breakeven, for the day and for the week….some a little red and some a little green. We also ended up having one of the best Julys ever. Of course though, we only recovered what we had lost in June. 8O

Futures are taking off early this evening, moving up almost 1%. If this can hold overnight we should have a good start to the month of August. For disclosure, I’m long ES and CL….or S&P emini and oil for you non-futures traders. :mrgreen:

I’ll be light on trading Monday as I go golfing at a charity event….so go long golf ball manufacturers.

Thanks for reading and good luck this week!

Nice…Turnaround Tuesday

Published on July 20, 2010, 10:36 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

So wasn’t there some news this morning about bad earnings from GS? And weren’t C BAC GE still bad? Isn’t everyone worried about the bank stress test in Europe? So why are all the traders happy today?

Funny that the US dollar did not matter, or at least there is not that strong correlation between the US$ and the markets. Oil still seems to be correlated, as oil went up so did the indexes.

Lots and lots of earnings on Wednesday…and even more on Thursday! I’m interested in MS WFC KO QCOM and NFLX. That should give me an idea of how the world is doing. 8) And if the markets can’t rally on this evening’s AAPL report, then we’re in real trouble!

I apologize for some short blog entries, but I’m having technical difficulties with my hardware this week. I have tracked the problem(s) down, but new parts will take 7-10 days. In the mean time I’ve fired up a backup PC and getting it ready for trading tomorrow.

See you on the playing field.

Bad News Bears

Published on June 30, 2010, 10:19 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Bad news for sure! I think we have fallen enough from the highs to be in an official bear market now. :-(

The SPY, along with the S&P, confirmed a head ‘n shoulders pattern by breaking through the neckline.

Oh my!

Check out some of these other shenanigans: TSLA after being up $8 for the day, closes in the red; DNDN after closing about 4% in the red ($32.22) continued to dive after hours, trading at about $25; Oil is running down and BP is running up…What the $%@&*!

This evening, China PMI came in below expectations, so futures are in the toilet, at least for now. The bear is back! When a market opens higher and closes near or at the lows…THAT is classic bear market price action. :!:

Our one salvation is to see what the European reports come in like. I think I’ll go and by some firecrackers for the weekend. :twisted:

4 in a row with no relief!

Published on June 24, 2010, 7:29 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

In my 10+ years of trading, it has never been tougher than trading this week. Both banks and oil led us down. Banks kept us down while oil looks like it’s trying to recover. The only thing I traded today was ES, the S&P emini. Looking over the trades, not one was more than 5 minutes and several were under 120 seconds in duration! Oh my! Sure it was a down day, but all my trades were long.

Check this out….you would think we would go a lot lower with a VIX of 349!!

Sure it’s a bad tick, but I thought I’d grab a picture of it just to remember. :)

The TRIN again closed high at 2.99. Remember what I said a couple days ago when the TRIN closed at 3.82…The Arms Index says: TRIN close over 2.0 results in bounce next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Market in trouble…..and we got NO bounce…and yes we’re in trouble.

So we’re down 4 days in a row. A 3 or 4% correction is no big whoop, but that is assuming tomorrow the markets get back on track and show some bullishness. If not, the bear is back and we may be on our way to some new lows.

And he scores!

Published on June 23, 2010, 10:49 pm in Opinions, reading and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Can’t wait until World Cup Soccer is over .. we need all the volume we can get back into the markets! I was waiting for the Fed rate decision because I wanted to play that knee-jerk rollercoaster in the few minutes after. But no! It’s like my screen froze…nothing happened. It took ten minutes before any significant move was made. And it sure wasn’t violent or crazy.

I was most disappointed that oil took such a dive…it was oil that led us up the past couple weeks and I don’t want it to lead us down. It did try to recover during the day, but went back down near the day’s end.

I’m afraid the entire day on Thursday will be framed by the jobless initial claims number. This time I hope the government dresses it up to show the number coming down. 8)

There’s a lot of news brewing outside of economic reports that will affect the markets in the coming days. Check these out:

Oil, currencies, banks and presidents…gee, do you think any of those matter to this market?

Here we go!

Published on June 20, 2010, 8:26 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Now that June options and future contracts have all rolled over, time to move on.

Volume was very low for an options expiration Friday. That USA vs Slovenia soccer match really took a lot of traders out of the mix! :D    Actually, the entire week was a low volume boring time for an opex week. :-(

This week should be a bit more news driven than last. A Fed rates decision is due on Wednesday. During the week we’ll see New Home sales, Durable goods orders, GDP and consumer sentiment…plus a rash of treasury bill auctions.

Futures are taking off Sunday evening!! Dow e-mini (YM) is already up +140, the S&P e-mini (ES) is up +17…if this holds up overnight we will get a big bang at the open! Oil is up almost 2 dollars and other commodities are following suit. Get ready for a rip roarin’ Monday! :mrgreen:

Groundhog Day?

Published on June 17, 2010, 9:51 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Today was just like yesterday! Yes, boring, but still showing confusion and consolidation, and again another doji. Candlesticks say we need a confirmation candle to tell us which way the market will go…but all we got was a “duh!” Which way do we go?

Oil got slapped around today, but considering that move from $69.50 to $78 in just 2 weeks, it too was due for some consolidation. Gold had a great day, breaking out through the May highs. The US dollar had a down day but may be looking for a move up. If it goes up the stock market goes crap. :cry:

I got a few coins out of TZA in the early morning, but then just stood still for the markets to do whatever they wanted to do. I’m still sitting long and cash….and the long part has a hairline trigger!

Quadruple-witching options expiration day on Friday! And no economic data reports nor any earnings reports may make for a dull opex. The action probably comes back next week.