Fine. I'll pick apart your statement one line at a time: 1)"buy low sell high" This is retarded. No further comments needed. 2)"stay away from tuesday 4:30/wednesday 10:30 reports" Stay away? These reports offer great trading opportunities around core positions. If you were already long WTI going into inventory why wouldn't you offer some lots out 1.00 higher on the spike and buy them back on the lows of the day? These numbers sometimes provide great opportunities for traders. 3)"buying dips is easier than shorting because of random opec rumors/news" Categorically false. There is a carry trade in oil that allows natural shorts to earn the forward carry that buffers against losses. And likewise provides a strong tail wind for natural longs. Just check out the buy and hold of an oil ETF like USO to see what I mean. Shorting a market in contango is much easier then buying a market in contango holding everything else constant. Also, regarding rumors, there are just as many rumors that cause oil to spike down as up, reference the debacle over the last week for reference. Theoretically speaking, there is a natural ceiling to how high oil can go since producers will flood the market with supply at levels above their marginal cost of production. No such floor exists on the downside. There is nothing to stop oil from going to 40, 25, or even 10. 4)"and strict risk management" I'll give you this one but this applies to all trading not just energy. 5)"all you need to know about oil, fundamentals don't matter" This is the worst one. Oil is absolutely driven by fundamentals. In fact, the only markets in the world that are driven by fundamentals are oil and the grains. This market is driven by the physical players, not the paper. This is why every major trading house in Houston has a physical desk. The fundamentals create the arbitrage between the physical and paper assets. THEY absolutely drive this market. Not the silly ET trend line traders that think oil has to hold at some silly support level. This is a market that simply cannot be traded without understanding what is going on in the physical space.
The bolded text there... Isn't the floor on the downside effectively zero per barrel? Or maybe $10, let's say. I say at current price, there is limited downside, but no limit to upside.
From a practical perspective? Sure. Economically? No. If you hold oil in storage and are capital constrained and say it costs you $15 to pay for that storage over the next year and you could sell your oil for -5$, you could do that and make $10 or put another way, prevent $10 in future losses. Now of course this is extremely unlikely to happen, but there many industries that do sell product at a loss because by doing so they "lose less" then if they had to hold and store it. Anyone who has studied micro-economics will know this as the shutdown decision for a firm. As long as price is above average variable cost, they can produce and sell their product.
I was in the CME Futures trading challenge in 2014 and 2015 with my school. We hadn't ever participated in it, but I stumbled across it somehow in late 2013 and started a team. It was a lot of fun, we made it to Chicago both years (have to be in top 10% or by invite if there are open spots) and they really went all out and had a great setup while we were there. They had a job fair there with some prop firms primarily. I had really hoped to get commodity firms in there as they had been in the past I read (and that was primarily what I was looking at career wise), but there weren't any the two years I went. Nonetheless a great time and experience and their platform and execution setup (run through CQG) was really nice considering it wasn't real trades of course. I didn't read any of the other posts, just saw the CME challenge mentioned. Anyways, back into my hole lol.
ppfffftttt...... Although the story is interesting, Why would a profitable oil trader want to trade and make a tonne of cash for a company while sitting on a 55K salary?
How did you evaluate the fundamental price of oil and conclude that the price have bottomed? as far as I observe, there is a small bear trend on the daily chart and it is still unclear whether the weekly bear trend has finished yet.
Oil commodity should be an industry having the most complicate supply-chain/value-chain, impacting the price discovery process with various futures contracts. Q http://www.psac.ca/business/industry-overview/ What is the upstream oil & gas industry? When you fill up your car with gasoline or pay your natural gas heating bill, you are the final link in a long chain of businesses that make it possible for us to enjoy these clean, convenient and economical forms of energy. The entire chain is known as the petroleum industry. However, the industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream industry finds and produces crude oil and natural gas. The upstream is sometimes known as the exploration and production (E&P) sector. Because Alberta accounts for more than 80 per cent of Canada’s oil and gas production, many upstream businesses are based in Alberta and most have their head offices in Calgary. The midstream industry processes, stores, markets and transports commodities such as crude oil, natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs, mainly ethane, propane and butane) and sulphur. The midstream provides the vital link between the far-flung petroleum producing areas and the population centres where most consumers are located. In Canada, transmission pipeline companies are a major part of the midstream petroleum industry. Most of these companies are also based in Calgary, although their activities extend across the country, into the United States and sometimes abroad. The downstream industry includes oil refineries, petrochemical plants, petroleum products distributors, retail outlets and natural gas distribution companies. Although many downstream companies are headquartered in Calgary, the largest centres of activity are near Sarnia, Ontario, and Edmonton, Alberta. The downstream industry touches every province and territory-wherever consumers are located-and provides thousands of products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, asphalt, lubricants, synthetic rubber, plastics, fertilizers, antifreeze, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, natural gas and propane. The upstream petroleum industry in Canada includes more than 1,000 exploration and production companies as well as hundreds of associated service businesses such as seismic and drilling contractors, service rig operators, engineering firms and various scientific, technical, service and supply companies. Upstream industry revenues totaled $63 billion in 2000, of which 53 per cent came from the sale of crude oil. The remainder was from sales of natural gas, natural gas liquids and sulphur. About half of Canada’s oil and gas production is exported to the United States. Canada is self-sufficient in natural gas-supplying virtually all domestic markets with domestically produced natural gas-but imports of crude oil into Eastern Canada account for about 40 per cent of the nation’s oil supply. The Canadian upstream petroleum industry has attained an international reputation for excellence in many areas including: high-tech exploration and production methods cold-climate operations development of oil sands, heavy oil and sour gas gas processing, sulphur extraction and heavy oil upgrading construction and operation of pipelines specialized controls and computer applications services, equipment and training for environmental protection and safety more ... ... UQ