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Crude oil was higher overnight and spiked above January's high as it extends the rally off February's low. Stochastics and the RSI are bullish signaling that sideways to higher prices are possible near term. If May extends the rally off February's low, the 38% retracement level of the 2008-2009 decline crossing at 86.16 is the next upside target. Closes below the 20 day moving average crossing at 82.25 would confirm that a short term top has been posted. First resistance is overnight high crossing at 85.89. Second resistance is the 38% retracement level of the 2008-2009 decline crossing at 86.16. First support is the 10 day moving average crossing at 82.64. Second support is the reaction low crossing at 82.25.
Natural gas was lower overnight as it consolidates some of last Thursday's rally. Stochastics and the RSI are bullish signaling that sideways to higher prices are possible near term. Closes above the 20 day moving average crossing at 4.211 would confirm that a short term low has been posted. If May extends the decline off December's high, weekly support crossing at 3.502 is the next downside target. First resistance is last Thursday's high crossing at 4.157. Second resistance is the 20 day moving average crossing at 4.211. First support is last Thursday's low crossing at 3.810. Second support is weekly support crossing at 3.502.
The U.S. Dollar was slightly lower overnight as it consolidates below the 10 day moving average crossing at 81.61. Stochastics and the RSI are neutral to bearish hinting that a short term top might be in or is near. Closes below the 20 day moving average crossing at 81.05 are needed to confirm that a short term top has been posted. If June renews this winter's rally, the May 2009 high on the weekly continuation chart crossing at 83.34 is the next upside target. First resistance is March's high crossing at 82.52. Second resistance is the May 2009 high on the weekly continuation chart crossing at 83.34. First support is the 20 day moving average crossing at 81.05. Second support is last Thursday's low crossing at 80.52.
As you can see the price action of gold has been trading within a few patterns the past couple months. First we saw a nice ABC Retrace correction and now it looks like a possible reverse Head & Shoulders or Wedge pattern is forming.
All three of these patterns are bullish but resistance must be overcome before I will start putting my money to work.
NYSE & NASDAQ Indexes – Daily Charts
We saw the broad market trade sideways for the majority of the week. As usual we had a pre-holiday pop in prices with the week closing slightly positive for stocks. These gains are generally given back the following week as volume picks back up.
The one thing that has me scratching my head is that the major indexes like SP500, Dow, NASDAQ and Russell 2000, all stayed below their previous weeks high. But the NYSE as shown below as the top chart clearly broke out to a new high.
I look at the NYSE as leading indicator and this makes me think we could see stocks grind higher right into earning season. All we can do at this point is wait for more data points on the chart and continue analyzing the market one day at a time.
Weekend Trading Conclusion: As I mentioned last week, the market is over extended as we enter earning season. The market is in the same situation as we saw going into the January earning season.
I do not think we will have a huge pullback but I think a 3-5% correction is likely in the coming days or week. Once we get a pullback we should see support around the 30 or 50 day moving averages and then see the market head toward new highs once again.
The precious metals sector is getting a lot of attention because of the whistle blower on JP Morgan stating that metals are seriously manipulated with a huge amount of short positions still in place. I think this could be helping this sector and I hope we get a low risk setup in the coming week or two.
Crude oil rose to a 17 month high on speculation global demand will increase as the world economy recovers from recession. A report today in the U.S., the world’s largest oil user, will probably show service industries expanded for a third month in March, according to a survey of economists. Oil prices have established a floor of $75 a barrel, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said April 2. There is no need for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production, he said.
Crude oil for May delivery rose as much as 81 cents, or 1 percent, to $85.68 a barrel in after hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since Oct. 9, 2008. It was at $85.62 at 8:10 a.m. in Tokyo. The contract rose $1.11, or 1.3 percent, to $84.87 on April 1. Prices climbed after reports showed Chinese, European and U.S. manufacturing expanded, while pessimism decreased among Japan’s largest industrial companies.
Oil trading resumed today after the exchange closed on April 2 to mark the Good Friday Easter holiday. A Labor Department report that day showed the U.S. economy gained 162,000 jobs in March, the most in three years, buoyed by 48,000 temporary workers hired by the government to conduct the census. Oil traded within a range of $68 to $84 a barrel in the six months ended March 30. Prices climbed the past two months as improved investor confidence lifted world equity markets and U.S. refining climbed from a 16 month low.....Read the entire article.
The stock of controversial energy firm InterOil (IOC) rose yesterday on a Platts' story that the company may be close to signing a partnership with a Japanese company. Such a partnership might allow InterOil (IOC) to begin to actually exploit the energy resources it believes it has found in Papua New Guinea.
Not surprisingly, however, IOC's critics suggest that the Platts story was planted by the company in an attempt to keep hopes alive. They also note that the deals described in the Platts story won't help the company build a major liquid natural gas plant, which is the only way it will be able to derive real value from the finds. Platts' LNG Daily reports, according to "sources close to the matter," that InterOil "reached a preliminary agreement" with a "Japanese partner" for a liquids stripping project, an alliance that would be a precursor to the company's planned $7 billion liquid natural gas development.
The article is short on specifics: InterOil and its partners are in “final negotiations” to select a partner, “as there are several Japanese companies that have expressed interest in becoming partners in the condensate and the LNG project,” said the source, declining to elaborate. If true, such a partnership would add needed cash and credibility to the company's attempts to build its operations and exploit the "world record" energy reserves it has long claimed. Another potential partner is Indian gas company Gail, which is in talks to buy a stake in InterOil, according to Upstream.....Read the entire article.
President Obama is going to open up some off shore drilling. April fool! No, I am not kidding but as exciting as that might be, the oil market is not reacting to drill, drill, drill but to jobs, jobs, jobs. A weak ADP employment report and today super hot data coming out of China was enough to make traders forget about a bearish supply report from the Energy Information Agency and the prospects of perhaps maybe someday more domestic oil and gas production. Oil prices are soaring to the major resistance of $85, an area that if taken out would break us out of almost a 17 month trading range. Of course it is not a breakout until it is so let’s focus on what is driving that the madness.
First, it is the weak ADP employment data. After last month’s supposed snowstorm influenced monthly jobs report, the hopes were rising that perhaps this month’s jobs number released on Good Friday might be a blockbuster. Yet a disappointing jobs ADP report showed a decline of 23,000 private-sector jobs as opposed to the 50,000 gain that had been expected. This was very bullish for oil because it reinforces the belief that interest rates in the US will stay lower longer than expected as the fed will be reluctant to remove this historic and massive stimulus from the system. This in turn will weigh on the dollar and drive up oil demand built upon cheap money, not to mention some smoke and mirrors.
This news was enough to make traders eventually shrug off a bearish EIA report. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories increased by 2.9 million barrels last week. That puts us at 354.2 million barrels is 6.5% above the five year average. As for gas a surprising increase of 0.3 million barrels last week, putting supplies 4.9% above the five year average. Distillates fell by 1.1 million barrels but are still a whopping 19.6% above the five year average.
Oil is being driven even higher on strong manufacturing data out of China. China's official PMI rose to 55.1 in March from 52.0 in February which was higher than expected and showing that China’s economy is continuing to soar. We see strong growth that will send inflation surging in China and a government that due to pride and political reasons, may be reluctant at this point to try to slow things down. This is adding to the momentum in oil. Playing hardball with the Chinese over its currency means the risk of creating a bubble in China has gone up. The Chinese will more than likely wait too long to slow things down raising a risk of a crash that can have global implications. Of course that may not be today and that is a story for down the road.
Since the beginning of this year I have been saying that oil had the potential to break down to $40 a barrel based upon my longer term wave charts. Of course I also said that the possibility would be negated if oil closed above $85 a barrel. Yet I also said that the move would not be straight down and that instead of taking a longer term position it might be more advantageous to trade the ranges from both the long and short side. I said back then if you had to take a position on a long term basis back in January would be short with a stop above $85. Still I recommended also that this move would not be straight down and I thought it would be better to trade the ranges as opposed to a straight short position or long position. Along the way we have played oil from both the long end and short end.
I reasoned that oil was caught basically in two congruent trading ranges between $75 and $85 and a lower range between$65 and $75. Since we made that call oil has fallen as low as 6859 only to rally back up to a 17 month high. We have seasonal strength, global macro economics conditions, along with strong demand out of China, where the government is playing politics and therefore will be less likely to try and reign in inflation, has oil threatening to negate the longer term bearish formation. If oil closes above $85 expect another new trading range peaking around $95. That is only if oil closes above $85.00.
Crude oil closed up $1.13 at $84.89 a barrel today. Prices closed nearer the session high today and hit another fresh 11 week high. Prices also closed at a bullish weekly high close today. Crude oil bulls have the solid overall near term technical advantage and have regained solid upside momentum this week.
Natural gas closed up 22.1 cents at $4.09 today. Prices closed nearer the session high today after hitting a fresh contract low early on. Prices also scored a bullish "outside day" up on the daily bar chart and closed at a bullish weekly high close. Short covering in a bear market was featured. However, if prices on Monday can show good follow through buying, then a bullish "key reversal" up on the daily bar chart would be confirmed, which would then be one early technical clue that a maket bottom is in place.
The U.S. dollar index closed down 36 points at 80.93 today. Prices closed near the session low again today and closed at a bearish weekly low close. No serious chart damage has occurred but the bulls have faded this week on profit taking pressure. The bulls do still have the overall near term technical advantage.
Gold and the stock market continue to trade within a tight range this week. While the long term trend for both stocks and metals are up, and the charts look bullish I am not buying at this level because the market is over bought.
Chasing prices higher especially after a run this large is not the right move in my opinion. I did mention last week that we could see stocks continue to grind higher going into earning season which is about 2 weeks away still. I think that could happen, and if the same thing happens which we saw last January with great earnings (which I think we will see again) then watch out for another drop.
In short, if earning are good which they have been and everyone is expecting the same this April, then the typical Buy on Rumor (pre-earnings rally) which is what we have now, and Sell on the Good News in April then all the suckers thinking the market should rally will provide some liquidity for the smart money to sell at a premium.
That being said, if the earning are not good, then people will sell on that news also because the market is just waiting for news to sell… It’s the exact same situation as last time, that’s how I am feeling about it.
Trading Bottoms in the Broad Market
The past few months I have been really focusing on buying dips in the broad market after I see a mini 3 wave correction. I use a mix between price patterns, volume, market sentiment, and market internals and of course years of watching how the market moves and evolves during times of economic expansion and contractions. This is represented on the chart below as the purple line.
This chart below shows one of my custom indicators which have successfully timed intermediate market bottoms 1-2 days before everything started to rally higher. This is one of the reasons we bought into the selling on Feb 5th and again on Feb 25th using ETF’s.
Because this is a new etf trading strategy and type of trading signal to be used in a bull market I still have to fin tune it a little more because I want to be sure we don’t get shaken out of positions to early which is what happened to a couple ETF’s we got into Feb 5th.
What happened was were buying when EVERYONE was bearish and panicking out of positions making it an extremely emotional time for traders and myself to buy into the market. This is not an easy task… I still have trouble pulling the trigger on these days and some times I just sit back in my chair and with one quick poke from my finger I hit the enter button to buy. My heart pounding just from that… but add few thousand followers on the pile relying on quality analysis and you start to understand what im going though. Not to mention the hundreds of emails with people telling me the market is about to crash, we should be shorting etc....Crazy times for sure.
Anyways, I will be provided these new signals for subscribers which is very exciting. Because my focus is on managing risk and keeping it as low as possible this will be a learning curve as I apply it to the service and set protective stops which is very difficult to do during a time of high volatility in the market. We can see the market move 2-4% in one day during these times so if we are trading the TNA 3x leveraged Russell2000 fund we could see our position drop 12% in one day. Bigger risk, bigger rewards as they say.
GLD Gold ETF – Daily Chart
Gold and silver are currently trading in limbo at the moment. It’s tough to say what’s going to happen here which is why I continue to wait for something with a high probability of winning before putting any money to work.
The daily chart clearly shows a multi month bull flag, ABC retrace, Reverse Head & Shoulders, and wedge. All of which are very bullish. It’s just a waiting game as I do not jump the gun on any move because the market has the tendency to catch everyone off guard and I don’t want to be one of them. Been there, done that to many times....
Mid-Week ETF Trading Signals Conclusion:
Keeping things short and simple, I think the stock market is in a major bull market. I am not buying anything until we get a pullback of some type. If the market unfolds properly we could have a great shorting opportunity (profit from a falling market) happening any day now, so that is my main focus at this time.
Crude oil surged to a 17- month high and gasoline rose on signs that global economic growth is accelerating, bolstering optimism that fuel consumption will increase this year. Oil advanced as much as 1.6 percent after reports showed U.S., Chinese and European manufacturing expanded, while pessimism decreased among Japan’s largest industrial companies. Government data tomorrow may show that U.S. employers added about 180,000 jobs in March, a Bloomberg News survey showed.
“The economic news recently has generally been good, which has changed the perception of the oil market,” said Sarah Emerson, managing director of Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. “An economic recovery is always good for demand.” Crude oil for May delivery rose 88 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $84.64 a barrel at 11:16 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $85.10, the highest level since Oct. 10, 2008. Prices climbed 5.5 percent last quarter and are 75 percent higher than a year ago.
Gasoline for May delivery increased 1.56 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $2.3228 a gallon in New York. The contract reached $2.3329, the highest level since Oct. 2, 2008. There will be no Nymex futures trading tomorrow because of the Good Friday holiday.....Read the entire article.
Crude oil rises to as high as 84.70 so far today and the decisive break of 83.16 confirms that rise from 69.50 has resumed. Intraday bias remains on the upside and further rally should be seen to 61.8% projection of 69.50 to 83.16 from 78.56 at 86.92 next. On the downside, below 82.36 minor support will turn intraday bias neutral first. But after all, break of 78.56 support is needed to be the first sign of topping. Otherwise, outlook will remain bullish.
In the bigger picture, crude oil is still trading well inside medium term rising channel and the rise from 33.2 is still in progress. Nevertheless, as such rise from 33.2 is treated as a correction to whole decline from 147.27 only, we'd continue to expect strong resistance near to 50% retracement of 147.27 to 33.2 at 90.24 to bring reversal. On the downside, though, break of 69.50 support will now indicate that crude oil has topped out in medium term already and turn outlook bearish.....Nymex Crude Oil Continuous Contract 4 Hours Chart.
