Set The Emotion Aside, Here is a Technicians View of VIX, Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and the SP 500

So did Crude Oil Trader contributor J.W. Jones get whacked by the sell off.......

The following article is an update on the current technical position of the marketplace as I see it. Obviously the price action this week has been ugly as the situation in Europe has become front and center in the minds of traders and market prognosticators. The information below is an adaptation of what members of my service at Options Trading Signals.com received earlier today.

The S&P 500 sold off sharply earlier this morning and has since bounced higher. Price is drifting lower as I write this but on the shorter term time frame we may see a short / intermediate term bottom traced out during intraday trade today. It would make sense that prices would rebound after being so extremely oversold.

The 10 minute chart of the S&P 500 E-Mini futures chart below illustrates the intraday price action:

If the S&P 500 does carve out an intraday bottom, the daily chart of the S&P 500 below illustrates the key price levels that will come into play on a potential reflex rally:

The VIX is trading lower after popping higher this morning. The data coming out tomorrow and Friday may give traders an opportunity to get involved with a short side try on the VIX. However, I am going to wait patiently for the setup to present itself. Clearly any trade would be a shorter term type of trade as the VIX can behave wildly.

The usual suspects (IYT, XLF, EEM, IWM) are all trading to the downside again today. The financials (XLF) are showing relative weakness at this point in time. The rest of the usual suspects are all rolling over quite similarly to the S&P 500.

The daily chart of the XLF is shown below:

The U.S. Dollar Index futures are trading lower today and continue to base right at a key support level. If price breaks down we could see risk assets like the S&P 500 and oil push higher. For right now, the Dollar is trading well above key support.

Gold futures sold off sharply this morning but have since regained most of the intraday losses and are trading strongly to the upside from Tuesday’s close. Gold is starting to get a bit stretched to the upside and I am stalking a potential short trade on gold for the service. It would only be a short term trade, but I think a pullback is likely.

Silver futures have broken out and intraday price action has pushed silver above recent resistance levels. I’m not going to chase silver here as it could be the beginning of a failed breakout. However, if prices continue higher in coming days or price consolidates at this breakout level I will become interested in taking silver long.

For now, the precious metals are intriguing, but I like the price action in silver better than gold as we have more crisply defined risk levels as gold has runaway to all time highs.

The silver futures daily chart illustrates the key levels in silver:

Oil futures are trading sharply lower today and are coming into a key support level going back to late June. If those prices do not hold up, we could see oil trade down below the key $90/barrel price level. At this point in time, I am not interested in trading oil, but if price works down into the $85/barrel price level I will be interested in oil as a longer term trade for the service.

Lastly, Treasuries are really pushing higher recently. I am patiently stalking a long term entry on TBT for the service similar to the oil trade discussed above. For right now, I’m going to remain in cash and see how price action plays out. Members of my service have been sitting in cash for the past few weeks and we have sidestepped this entire selloff. While I’m sitting in cash for now, I have a growing list of names I am stalking for trades in the future.

Get J.W.'s calls directly to your inbox by signing up at Options Trading Signals.com 

Rigzone: Crude Oil Drops 1.2% on Economic Worries

Crude oil futures continued to retreat Tuesday as economic concerns weighed on the market. At its lowest in more than a month, light, sweet crude settled lower at $93.79 a barrel, down $1.10 from yesterday. Tuesday's trading session reached lows last seen on June 28.

Early Tuesday, a U.S. Commerce Department report showing a drop in consumer spending for the first time in nearly two years weighed down oil prices. The report also showed that incomes barely rose for the month of June. Analysts believe that the series of negative economic data is overshadowing the U.S. deficit-cutting package.

The Brent contract traded between $115.77 and $118.36, before settling at $116.46 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. The 35 cent day on day drop came on supply disruptions in the North Sea and a refinery fire in Taiwan.

Futures for September natural gas decreased 3.3 cents Tuesday, closing at $4.155 per thousand cubic feet. According to the National Hurricane Center, the Caribbean's latest storm Tropical Storm Emily could pick up strength in a day or two; but, as of now, the storm poses a low threat to the Gulf's output. Approximately 7.4 percent of the U.S. natural-gas production lies in the Gulf of Mexico.

Natural gas prices fluctuated between $4.135 and $4.23, maintaining a similar trading range to Monday's session. Gasoline blendstock for September delivery dropped for a fifth consecutive session, closing at $3.04 a gallon.

Posted Courtesy of Rigzone.Com

Gold and the QE3 Ship – Are Both About to Sail?

From Gold ETF Trader contributor David Banister at Market Trend Forecast.....

Back in Mid-May of this year we had a big rally in the Dollar and Gold was correcting hard. There was a bit of Dollar Bull hysteria at the time which I felt was quite unfounded. I wrote an article entitled, “The Dollar Bull Monkey Dance Will Soon End Badly, QE3 Next?” You see, the collective herd psychology at that time, just a short ten weeks ago, was that Gold would drop hard at the end of QE2, and The Dollar would of course rally as high as 82, maybe more against the weighted index.

The dollar has dropped hard since mid-May as I expected and Gold has continued to rally as well. I had forecasted $1627 for Gold back when we were under $1,500 and last Friday we closed at $1627 on the nose! During the mid May time, most disagreed with my QE3 forecast, and probably still do but I think the ships is soon leaving port. This could blast Gold up to a target of $1805 on the high end and certainly into the low 1700’s to the $1730 per ounce range.

Gold has had a powerful 5 wave rally (Elliott Wave Theory) since the October 2008 lows of $681 per ounce, and certainly one could argue that a correction would make sense fairly soon. However, the fundamentals for Gold are only getting stronger as we have inflation climbing at an 8-9% real rate and interest rates continuing to drop. This is creating a “negative” real interest rate environment amidst a continuing weaker US dollar. Hence it is hard fundamentally to argue against Gold at this time, creating difficulty in forecasting the intermediate highs and lows.

With that said, assuming QE3 or some form takes place soon then my $1805 target is quite likely to be hit before we can look for any meaningful correction in the precious metal complex. With the ISM manufacturing index turning down sharply as reported this morning and other economic indicators and GDP report rolling over, a QE3 ship horn is likely to sound soon. Below is my latest chart dated July 22nd with Gold at $1599 at the time, outlining the likely interim moves in Gold using my crowd behavioral methodology that I employ at my forecasting service.

The combination of crowd behavior and fundamental analysis often delivers stunningly accurate forecasts in advance on the SP 500, Gold and Silver at TMTF. Consider signing up for our regular updates and use our 72 hour coupon code at Market Trend Forecast

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Just Three More Days To The Debt Deadline and What is Warren Buffetts Solution?

Just three more days to the debt deadline. I’m guessing that it is an artificial deadline made up for political reasons. I am positive that this is just an arbitrary date that some policy wonk came up with to get everyone up in arms about doing something with the debt.

I believe Warren Buffett had the best idea on how to end our debt problems. Here is what Warren had to say: “I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.” Way to go Warren!!!

Well, we have made it to the last day of the trading week and the last day of the trading month. The equity markets are, as of this writing, sharply lower for the week and also the month. Gold and Silver on the other hand, are sharply higher for the week and the month.

As we have been indicating, we felt the equity markets were rolling over to the downside. Technically we are getting closer to pulling the trigger on our major monthly Trade Triangle which sets the trend for the equity markets.

Now let’s take a look at what the markets are telling us and the direction they’re taking on this last trading day of the month.

S&P 500

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Negative
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 70
Looking at the monthly S&P 500 index chart, a close around current levels would be the lowest close we’ve seen in this index for the past 6 months. The monthly PSAR comes in at 1256. As we have stated many times before, this is a line in the sand level that if broken would indicate further downside action.

SILVER (SPOT)

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 85
Silver is closing out the month with a gain of over 15%. The action continues to be positive and we expect this market to trade to the $43 level basis the spot market.

GOLD (SPOT)

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100
In July, gold moved up over 8% and in doing so hit new all-time highs against the US dollar. The trend remains positive with all of our Trade Triangles positive and we have an intermediate target zone between $1640 and $1650.

CRUDE OIL (SEPTEMBER)

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 75
For the month of July, crude oil closed essentially unchanged. We still feel that this market is building an energy field to move higher. We want to closely watch this market in the coming days and weeks and look for a turn to the upside.

DOLLAR INDEX

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Negative
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 55
The dollar index was essentially flat during the month of July with a loss of 0.62%. For the last four months, this index has been moving sideways unable to break out of its trading range. Eventually you will see this change and a stronger trend developing.

REUTERS/JEFFERIES CRB COMMODITY INDEX

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 75

One of the reasons we eye this particular index so carefully and closely is because it is the indicator of inflation and deflation. In the month of July, this index closed up over 1%. The 350 level is the key level down to watch on the upside.

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Weekend Wrap Video....Calendar Count Down to Debt Ceiling Decision

Adams weekend trading update for the week ending on 7/22/11......

The percentage winner for the week was crude oil which moved up 2.32% and is on the verge of breaking out on the upside. The markets continue to wait and wonder as to what is going to happen with the debt ceiling talks.

It would seem like neither the democrats or the republicans give a hoot about the country, all they seem to be interested in is political gamesmanship and preserving their own power. We are as of today’s taping no closer to getting a debt ceiling deal in place than we were a week ago. UGH!!!

Europe is still in a quandary even though the politicians are trying to save face and save the no win situation in Greece. Imagine the first bailout to Greece didn’t work, so now we are going to loan Greece even more money to pay back. Does that make any sense to anyone?

Its like Greece belongs to this exclusive country club and can’t afford to pay it’s monthly tab or membership fees. Well, guess what, in the real world, i.e. the private sector, Greece would be kicked out of the club, end of story. However, in the world of political make believe and Kabuki theater, we’ll just loan you more of the tax payers money to pay for your dues. Sorry, I forgot it’s Europe’s turn to “Kick The Can Down The Road”.

Let’s take a look at the charts, because unlike politicians, they tell you what is really going on in the world.

So here’s what happened last week in the major markets.....

S&P500 move for the week: +2.19%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 90

Silver move for the week: +2.00%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

Gold move for the week: +.47%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 90

Oil move for the week: +2.32%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 60

Dollar Index move for the week: -1.19%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Negative
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 75

CRB Index move for the week: +.43%
Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 60

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Crowd Behavior Moves Gold, Silver and SP 500…Not The News!

From our partner David Banister at Market Trend Forecast.....

How many times have you scratched your trading head wondering why gold or silver were either rallying hard or dropping hard on seemingly bearish or bullish news? How about the general stock market represented by the SP500 Index? Has it ever rallied when the headlines were horrible or tanked when the news seemed good? Well, welcome to crowd behavioral dynamics and investing!

At my TMTF service, I use Elliott Wave Theory combined with a few other indicators like sentiment gauges and Fibonacci relationships to forecast the coming bottom and top pivots in Gold, Silver, and the SP 500 indexes in advance. In doing so, I often ignore the day’s headlines completely and rarely if ever use them to forecast the next movements in the precious metals or broad stock markets.

Let me give some examples of why you should learn to ignore economic indicators, headlines, and talking heads on CNBC and elsewhere and focus on crowd behavioral patterns. Learning to scale in long when everyone is getting bearish and taking profits when everyone is universally bullish is much easier if you follow Elliott Wave Theory, and apply that theory correctly. If the matter between your ears is unabashedly biased, it will not work… 

One must be objective and open minded to change to survive these volatile markets.

Recently with Gold, we had a major drop from $1557 to $1482 over brief window of time. When I last wrote about Gold several weeks ago publicly, I presented a bullish and a bearish case. I had said Gold must close over $1551, otherwise it may have a truncated top and correct hard. Sure enough, a few days later Gold hit $1557 intra-day and could not get over $1551 on that close. Within days it collapsed and dropped below $1500. How did I know this in advance? Crowd Behavioral Patterns are repeated throughout the markets over and over again and again. Here is the original chart I sent out many weeks ago showing the possible drop:

Gold did end up dropping to the 20 week Exponential moving average at $1480 range, and as it did I noticed a clear “ABC” weekly pattern. Now this is an Elliott Wave pattern that can warn you of an imminent bottom in Gold in this case. In late June, after this major correction I wrote up another chart and showed a potential bottom coming in Gold around 1480, and then on July 5th I confirmed the Bull views on Gold were coming back into play, which you can see with the June 29th chart I did below for my TMTF subscribers:

We were able to adjust our views from short term bearish to moving back to bullish and still catch the big swing in Gold. The precious metal rallied from $1480 ranges to $1610 recently, and now is likely to go through a minor correction to $1568 or so. All of this is the crowd’s action together pushing positions into overbought stages of hysteria, and back to oversold stages of pessimism…I simply track those patterns and try to forecast the next move ahead of the crowd running in or out.

Another sample is Silver as it collapsed from $49 down to $32-$33 per ounce not long ago. After the dust settled I sent out a chart and told my TMTF subs we would likely seeSilver trade in the $34-$41 range for quite a while, before mounting another attack back towards $50. Right now I see Silver soon running to $45-$47 per ounce once it takes a breath. Below is the original early June silver chart I sent to my TMTF subscribers: We had an ABC strong rally which we forecast at TMTF in late August 2010 ahead of time, and once those rallies are over it takes quite a while to work off the sentiment.

Silver has indeed consolidated as forecast for about 7 weeks now between 34-41, having recently hit $40.80 and backed off. I expect Silver to break out over this range soon and attack $60 by year end as possible, but certainly $46-$50 by the fall. Last Wednesday I finally went bullish again based on crowd patterns and told my subs to go long at $37 as you can see below in the chart sent out then with a target of $46 likely coming. The herd of investors had formed yet another ABC weekly pattern, and it was time to go long.

Finally we look at the SP 500 which I forecast on a regular basis as well using Elliott Wave Theory and other indicators. This past week or so we saw a huge drop in the SP 500 and broader markets supposedly on Italy concerns and Eurozone issues. Although I am well aware of these issues, they are used to explain what just happened in the stock market, but not forecast it. Late last week I sent out the chart below to my subscribers and said as long as 1294/95 pivot holds, I remain very bullish on the markets. The SP 500 hit 1295 and has since rallied 31 points in a few days catching everyone off guard. That is Crowd Behavior 101 if I ever saw it!

The bottom line is understanding that the precious metals and broader markets tend to move based on major swings in sentiment from optimistic to pessimistic. The collective psyche of the herd is the most important because we can have periods of very bad news where the market will continue to rally, and also periods of seemingly great news when the market is dropping. The perception of the news of the day and how the crowd decides to react is more important than the news itself! If you’d like to try the TMTF service and take advantage of a coupon as well, go to Market Trend Forecast and check us out. You can also sign up for an occasional but somewhat infrequent free reports.

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Adam Hewison: I Was Thinking This Weekend….

From Crude Oil Trader contributor Adam Hewison.....

Well, Monday is here and we are no closer to solving the debt problem than we were last week. Europe is still a disaster and that’s been reflected in the bank stocks today.

I was thinking this weekend....If everybody moved out of Greece, what would happen to the debt and who would pay it? I know it sounds weird to say, but the reality is with the euro zone you do have the freedom to work in other countries.

The world has changed, yet the politicians still think it’s the same game. In the world of the Internet you can be based practically anywhere that’s advantageous to you. In an example like Greece, which is so far underwater it seems they are never going to be able to bail themselves out....Why not just walk away from the debt? One could stand to reason that most well educated Greeks have the mobility and the language power to move to other countries in the euro zone and work.

Today’s markets reflect what I was saying all last week in regards to the bank stocks which are under tremendous pressure today. BAC is down over 3% and other bank stocks don’t look much better.

Gold and silver moved dramatically high today with gold topping the $1,600 an ounce level before some profit taking came in to the market. Silver is up close to 3% as I write this, and is moving higher and faster than gold percentage wise. So let’s take a look at these markets in more detail and workout some target zones for gold and silver, as well as the banks.
Now, let’s go to the markets and see how we can protect and make your money grow.

S&P 500

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 55

The 200 day moving average comes in at 1276 as does a long-term trend line from the lows set in March of 2009. That is the line in the sand for this market. We expect this level to be broken in the coming days and weeks.

SILVER

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

Traders should be long this market as all of our Trade Triangles are in a positive mode indicating higher prices ahead. As we have been indicating, we are expecting this market to reach highs towards the latter part of Q3 and early Q4. Look for support for this market at 36.00. The upside target for silver based on the Fibonacci count of 61.8% is $42.98.

GOLD

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

Traders who have been listening to my updates should be long gold. Short term traders should have taken the 52 week rule that we mentioned last Friday and have a trading unit on and have some nice profits in hand. We are looking for gold to move higher until the end of Q3 and possibly into Q4. Intermediate targets for gold are $1,642 and $1,650.

CRUDE OIL

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Negative
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 65
The -65 score indicates that this market remains in a trading range. At the present time, the crude oil market continues to have problems just over the $99 a barrel price point. Our Trade Triangle indicators both long and intermediate term remain negative for this market. Support comes in around $94 a barrel and resistance coming in just over $99. We are looking to buy this market later in the week, given the correct signals.

DOLLAR INDEX

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

The Dollar Index has been trapped in a broad trading range for the past two months. The Dollar Index remains below its 200 day moving average. The longer term trend for the Dollar Index is positive based on our Trade Triangle technology. Resistance remains between 76.00 and 77.00. Support comes in today at 74.00.

REUTERS/JEFFERIES CRB COMMODITY INDEX

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 55

The CRB index remains in a broad trading range. At the present time, our Trade Triangle technology is mixed for this index. Resistance is now at 350 and support looks to be at 340.

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The U.S. Dollar, Gold and SP 500 Trend Analysis

The dollar is and has been in a strong down trend for many years and I feel as though it’s getting close to another major land slide. It could take place any time in the next month or so according to my weekly chart analysis.

The general rule is if the dollar falls in value then we tend to see both stocks and commodities rise. The inverse relationship at times can be tick for tick meaning if the dollar ticks down one increment then we see the broad market or specific commodities move in the opposite direction at the same time.

Since 2009 the relationship between the dollar and investments has been so close that if you were to just focus on what the dollar was doing then you could almost trade equities and commodities without reading their charts. The dollar index chart is one of those trading tools everyone should be analyzing. At $80 a month for getting the dollar index data feed it’s not a cheap trading tool…

Dollar Index 4 Hour Candle Stick Chart:
This chart clearly shows this month’s price action for the dollar which is pointing to lower prices if things play out according to the charts. This short term chart shows that in the next day or so we should see the US dollar start to sell back down.

SP500 Daily Chart (Stock Market):
The SP500 index is a great barometer of what the overall stock market is doing. The chart below shows the 5 and 14 day simple moving averages and their recent crossovers.

Last Friday we had a bearish crossover and if the market does not rally early in the week then I am anticipating further weakness in stocks. While I am still bullish on stocks as of this moment the coming week will quickly tell us what stocks are going to do. If we get a bounce which turns into a strong follow through rally then we should see a sizable rally around the corner and also a falling dollar.

Gold Weekly Chart:
Back in May when gold was hit with strong distribution selling I posted my thoughts on how gold could be forming a 6-12 month topping pattern and how price could get choppy. Well, we are now entering that period which could prove to be interesting…

Keep in mind this is a weekly chart and from the looks of things this top could play out for another 5-6 months from here. Silver is in much of the same predicament but trading way below its May high. I’m thinking more of a double top in silver over the next few months.

Weekend Trend Trading Conclusion:
In short, I am bearish on the dollar for a week or so which should help boost stocks and commodities. After that we could see all investments make some big trend changes if buyers don’t step up to the plate to buy. If we any major headline news about the sky is falling then it could trigger a sharp correction. Unfortunately, at this time head line news is running wild spooking investors from buying much of anything other than gold. Any resolution to foreign economic issues will put pressure on both gold and silver and likely help boost stocks.

The past month I have been very cautious because the market is wound up and ready to explode in either direction. During times like this I prefer to stay mostly in cash until I get low risk setups and a clear trend.

Check out Chris Vermeulens trading methods and trade set ups at The Gold and Oil Guy

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Prepare Yourself For Increased Volatility Ahead Next Week

The precious metals markets continue to be on fire with silver jumping another 7% on top of a 8.35% gain the previous week. Gold closed the week on an all time high on Friday. Both gold and silver are reflecting the general fear that is prevalent in the markets. For the week gold put in a solid + 3.19% performance. You should be long one trading unit of gold based on our 52 week, weekend trading rule. We’re expecting this market to open higher on Sunday in the Far East, and also on Monday when the markets open here in the States.

The S&P 500 was not blessed with gains for the past week and dropped just over 2% for the week. We now have very clear battle lines drawn between the Bulls and the Bears. The 1276 level on the S&P 500 is where the 200 day moving average comes in this week. In addition to the 200 day moving average, we also have a long term trend line going all the way back to March of 2009. These are two key levels to watch this coming week.

In other markets the CRB and dollar index showed very little movement as they continue to be range bound. Crude oil appears to be treading water at the moment and has significant resistance overhead at $99.50 basis the August contract.
Watch video here

So here’s what happened last week in the major markets....

S&P500 move for the week: -2.05%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 85

Silver move for the week: +7.06%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

Gold move for the week: +3.19%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 100

Crude Oil move for the week: +.78%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Negative
Daily Trade Triangles for Short Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = – 55

Dollar Index move for the week: +.06%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long-Term Trends = Positive
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Negative
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 75

CRB Index move for the week: +.84%

Monthly Trade Triangles for Long Term Trends = Negative
Weekly Trade Triangles for Intermediate Term Trends = Positive
Daily Trade Triangles for Short-Term Trends = Positive
Combined Strength of Trend Score = + 60

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EIA Report: U.S. Dependence on Oil Imports Has Been Reduced

The U.S. imported about 49 percent of the crude oil and refined petroleum products that were consumed during 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) noted in a recent brief on the issue.

About half of these imports came from the Western Hemisphere, EIA said, adding that U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum has declined since peaking in 2005.

Canada is the United States' leading crude oil supplier, EIA reported.

CONSUMPTION, PRODUCTION AND IMPORT PATTERNS

The U.S. consumed 19.1 million barrels per day (MMbd) of petroleum products during 2010, making it the world's largest petroleum consumer, EIA said.

The U.S. was third in crude oil production at 5.5 MMbd. But since crude oil alone does not constitute all U.S. petroleum supplies. " . . . [B]ecause crude oil expands in the refining process, liquid fuel is captured in the processing of natural gas, and there are other sources of liquid fuel, including biofuels," EIA observed, reporting that these additional supplies totaled 4.2 MMbd in 2010.

In 2010, the U.S. imported 11.8 million barrels per day (MMbd) of crude oil and refined petroleum products. The U.S., however, also exported 2.3 MMbd of crude oil and petroleum products during 2010, so net imports (imports minus exports) equaled 9.4 MMbd, EIA noted.

Petroleum products imported by the United States during 2010 included gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, jet fuel, chemical feedstocks, asphalt, and other products. Still, most petroleum products consumed in the United States were refined here. Net imports of petroleum other than crude oil were 2 percent of the petroleum consumed in the United States during 2010, according to EIA.

ABOUT HALF OF U.S. PETROLEUM IMPORTS FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Of the total crude oil and petroleum product imports, 49 percent came from the Western Hemisphere (North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean including U.S. territories) during 2010. About 18 percent of U.S. crude and imports of crude oil and petroleum products come from the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. The U.S.' largest sources of net crude oil and petroleum product imports were Canada and Saudi Arabia, EIA said.

RELIANCE ON PETROLEUM IMPORTS HAS DECLINED

U.S. dependence on imported oil has dramatically declined since peaking in 2005, EIA emphasized.

"This trend is the result of a variety of factors including a decline in consumption and shifts in supply patterns," EIA said, continuing: "The economic downturn after the financial crisis of 2008, improvements in efficiency, changes in consumer behavior and patterns of economic growth, all contributed to the decline in petroleum consumption. At the same time, increased use of domestic biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel), and strong gains in domestic production of crude oil and natural gas plant liquids expanded domestic supplies and reduced the need for imports."

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