Here are some thoughts 1/ it seems unrest is more prominent in poor countries egypt, jordan, Siria than oil rich Iran, Saudi Arabia .. OPEC is more than willing to pump more oil to keep food/commodity prices low for their poor unrest neighbors . Part of it their self interest to cool down unrest, same is evident from OPEC minister statement today. 2/ same time bulls won't give up so easily, so oil range seems 89 -92 close of the day basis. So there can be good long/shorts in that range 3. It seems unlikely oil supply disruptions from unrest
The problem with the word "seems" is that it reflects our opinion or interpretation of something (news, in this case). I don't think there's any harm in knowing what the news is, especially if you're in a trade and the news is causing a strong move in your favor; it would help you stay in the trade for more profit, IMHO. However, I've lost money and opportunity by knowing the news and using my opinion of the news to trade. I remember times when the inventory report was bearish and I was afraid to take a single trade to the long side, despite price trending up the entire day, and vice versa for a bullish report. I'd sit through hours of clean easy trend waiting for a reversal signal that sometimes never appeared. I think the easiest way to make money day trading CL is to simply trade price. If there's a strong uptrend, buy the dips or the breakouts or both; if there's a channeling uptrend, buy pullbacks to the lower channel line (trend line); if there's a range, trade the range off a smaller time frame or wait for a break out of the range. It's good to know the time of the news releases, but I've found that not knowing that actual news itself has improved my profitability significantly.
I violated this cardinal rule. Shame on me. If it weren't for the Suez Canal, the reaction could be a lot different. This explains why the market didn't give any crap when Tunisians revolted.
Although it was a risky proposition as you mentioned, I'm glad that it worked out for you. I'm currently in your shoe and I hope Lady Luck comes to flirt with me as well.
The chart shows my trades today, almost all with-trend. The green dots are long entries, the red dots are short. They are described in order from left to right. 1) Pullback long @ 89.63, anticipatory trade, assuming support would be established just above the earlier 89.59 resistance. I placed a very tight stop based on .59 holding as support. 2) 2nd LH short @ 89.57 3) Positioned @ 89.30 for breakout of 89.21 low, but my non-survivable stop didn't survive 4) Positioned for breakout again @ 89.33, 1-tick breakout and I'm stopped out b/e 5) Previous trade stopped out b/e by just a tick or two and price action very weak; repositioned for the breakout @ 89.27, and the breakout was solid. I targeted a test of 88.45 which I had noted as a previous support level. Price broke that by a wee bit and I took profit pretty much at target. 6) Standard with-trend pullback entry @ 89.06. This was a 2-leg pullback, very common following a strong move. I almost always wait for a 2nd leg before positioning back into the trend, because sometimes after a strong move the trend reverses. 7) Down trend is disrupted by a higher low, but establishes a strong resistance shelf @ 89.18. I like resistance shelves that have been tested a lot. It means the oversupply at that level should be diminishing . I'm long a break of that R shelf. 8) With-trend pullback entry @ 89.55, b/e trade on no follow thru. 9) That weak break of previous R followed by a slightly lower high sucks me in counter-trend short @ 89.57 and I've pretty much sold the low tick and instead of reversing long at the 3-min pivot, I let it run to full stop and watch closely for a long signal where trapped shorts (such as myself) who didn't exit will start crying uncle. 10) The break that stopped me out is weak, unable to run to next R in line (89.89), BUT the weak breakout level of 89.79 is quickly retested and pulls back again. Buyers step in at previous 89.70 resistance, so I take the shelf break @ 89.80 for a solid run. 11) Price pulls back, forming a bull flag, and I trail my way into the pullback long entry @ 90.06, targeting a breakout of the HOD. My first 1-pointer. 12) By this time I realize I not only left some $ on the table by not targeting a full measured move, but also there's a 91.80 R level now in play. I take a pullback long @ 91.53 off a smaller time frame and scalp a very quick .20 on the break through 91.60. 13) A wide flag forms, and I get long again at about the same price as before, targeting a break through that 91.80 that sold off to the tick, and take another .20 when the break thru 91.80 is weak, but no sooner am I out, the thing keeps running without me.
I'm very happy you ended up making a nice profit. Just think how much you would have made though had you cut your losses short originally and then maybe rode this down to 85.50. And then if you had flipped it around that level and rode the whole thing up and/or maybe taken a small position at that level and added to your winning position on the way up. Maybe you would have been good for 3 years. We're all learning, eh? Glad it worked out though. And the same for Star who also rode this down. To be perfectly honest, of course, you guys are lucky that the situation in Egypt sprung up. What would have happened if OPEC had announced they were increasing production after discussing the situation with the US or something like that? You saw that chart that Picasso had posted where the bottom of that upward channel was somewhere around 79 or 80. Onward and upward.
The best reason to know that a release is coming is so you can be flat when the news breaks. As NoDoji has stated the best thing is to trade PA not the damn news. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
No problem, I've been working on some strategic tweaking very recently and today I started taking notes again as I was trading, so it wasn't too much extra work to find the entry bars and place the dots on the chart. From my own experience as a long-time counter-trend trader, the most difficult hurdle to get over is the pullback entry. During a pullback in a trend, I always feel as if the trend is now over and I'm crazy to be thinking of trading back in that "other" direction There's a low-grade edginess as I wait for the proper entry point, as I worry that I'll either be getting in too soon, or not soon enough. I have fixed guideposts such as the 20-bar moving average, but in a strong trend forget it. I posted a 3-min chart and even in that small time frame price never pulled back to the 20 for most of the pullback entries on the way up, other than for the initial confirmed reversal signal. The other problem is the more a trending move runs, the more it feels like price has gone too far and has to reverse. But I'm learning that trend-followers (and trend-following automated systems) are a rabid and tenacious bunch. They are truly the pit bulls of the trading world and do not give up easily. Every time I've had "too high" or "too low" disease, I missed the best move. I think the more you believe price has gone too far, the more powerful the next breakout will be, so just hold your nose and position yourself for it, and then resume breathing again as you watch your P/L get greener. A true seasoned trend-follower would've been long on that early reversal signal this morning and would've been adding to the winner all the way up, but I don't trust CL one bit, having seen it suddenly and inexplicably retrace an entire multi-leg trend in no time at all, so I prefer to trade in chunks, rather than risk giving back a whole lot of profit. The way I see it is I can always get back in as long as I stay focused and aggressive.