Glad it's warm for you this winter, because we just had the coldest January of the last 35+ years here in Fairbanks. And when I say "cold" I mean lows in the -40s and -50s for weeks on end. Awoke to -41 this am. It will finally go above zero this weekend as a "warm" front arrives. The high will likely get to +5. Sweet. (All temps in deg F). XLE looks like the top is in. I swing it off the daily/weekly concurrent set ups. Expect a bottom around mid March, but with the Iran fiasco, it could do anything really. I took profits and will now patiently wait for a new, clean set up across muliple time frames. Same situation in gold right now.
============= Figure XLE, OIH is a pretty good average ; for those interested in those underlying stocks. About 30 minutes till close, XLE still looks like short trend panda bear trend; medium , long trem trend of XLE,OIH = strong uptrend. A variant perception on word ''hot'' ,some like Jim Rogers use it for excellent uptrends in energy derivatives. A good medium /long term term tends to shrug off news against it;like GM went down , still downtrending even with a weighty comment on GM cars in Brazil run on sugarcane. Also strongest leaders in XLE or OIH sector tend to uptrend earlier/stronger; like weakest tend to lag/go down .
XLE and OIH behave like constant FOMC announcements and are great options spread stocks. I am watching Riskarb and Optioncoach's journals - I come up with a spread and then compare it to what they are doing - great papertrade practice.
Friday's close(a hammer) is somewhat bullish(for NY crude), but I believe we'll see more downside for oil and XLE.
New York, February 8. The US Department of Energy reported changes to US petroleum inventories for the week ended February 3 as follows (expectations in parentheses): Crude Oil . . . . . 320.7 mmbls, -0.3 (Unch to +2.0) SPR . . . . . . . . 683.9 mmbls, +0.2 Distillates . . . . 136.0 mmbls, -0.3 (-1.0 to -2.0) Gasoline . . . . . 223.3 mmbls, +4.3 (+1.0 to +2.0) Refineries . . . . 85.8% operating rate, -1.2% Cut to slightly bearish on oil.
http://www.thestreet.com/p/markets/commodities/10267037.html While checking out the charts of some commodities, I noticed something. If an energy/industrial commodity has an active futures market, it tends to be spiking. If not, it tends to be flattish. Hmm. Aluminum is spiking, steel is not. Oil is spiking, coal is not. Is there a pattern here? Is the whole "shortage" trade just hedgies gunning commodities in the futures market? Interesting, very interesting food for thought. The bursting of the commodity bubble might pop the only mo-mo trade left, but in the intermediate term, it is very good for most stocks. It also would help the Fed pause the interest rate hikes. So net-net, this bursting should be a positive for the financial markets BRIC Facade For further evidence of a commodities bubble, look at the demand side of the equation, specifically with oil. Conventional wisdom holds that the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will generate significant commodities demand for a long time. I too believe these economies present excellent long-term growth opportunities, and I like the BRIC story. But I like to go a bit deeper and look at the real numbers. So let's do that. Everyone knows that explosive growth in energy demand from BRIC will support ever-higher oil prices. Well, we have the data, and the numbers say not so fast. Brazil doesn't consume much oil, not even registering in the top 10-consuming countries through 2004. The former Soviet Union consumed 3.7 million barrels per day last year, as it did in 2000. Not much growth there. Other Asia (India) consumed 8.7 million barrels, up less than wildly from 8.5 million in 2004. Not much growth there either. China, the source of infinite demand growth for every commodity, consumed 6.6 million barrels per day in 2005. That was up from 6.4 million in 2004. Not very impressive. So, even with rapid growth in the BRIC economies, oil consumption slows dramatically. The pricing mechanism works, as it should in a capitalist system. Few investors really get how much demand growth slowed in the BRIC countries last year. The BRIC story makes for a great sound bite, but the numbers are quite different. I do not have the statistics for copper or aluminum. They may be different from oil. But for oil demand, the rapid price spike has dramatically tempered consumption growth. Incorrectly, commodity traders think otherwise.