Platts: ICE Brent futures lose previous quarter's premium to NYMEX WTI, Dubai

After a strong performance at the beginning of the year, the forward Brent complex lost some of its strength to WTI and Dubai crude futures in the second quarter of 2013 on a combination of European demand woes and stronger East and West crudes.

The narrowing of the spread between the ICE Brent futures and NYMEX light sweet contract, known as Brent/WTI spread, was a notable change in the quarter.

Toward the end of June, the ICE Brent front-month futures contract narrowed its premium to front-month NYMEX crude to below $6/barrel, more than halving from the beginning of the quarter. (A trend which of course has continued, with the spread tumbling below $5/b and even $4/b in just the first three days of July.)


Here's a short video in which John Carter shows how he trades oil and how he identifies targets when to take profit.

New video: Carolyn Borodens "Secrets to Maximizng your Profits and Minimizing your Risk"

In today's new video from John Carter he shows us how the strategies taught to him by our very own Carolyn "The Fibonacci Queen" Boroden helped him make 93k because Carolyn made it clear how to use her secrets to know when to exit these big trades.

You may recognize Carolyn from CNBC, but she's trading with us now. If you have been following the Crude Oil Trader then you know John Carter has made us a lot of money in 2013. Bringing in HIS instructor, one of the real "hot hands" on Wall Street, is going to take all of us to another level whether you are trading commodities, equities, currencies or options.

Click Here to Watch Video

Here's what John will be covering in this video. You'll learn......

• How to Know When to Enter a Trade

• How to Know When to Take Profits

• How to Find Key Levels to Take High Probability Trades

• How to Time Your Trade for Maximum Profit

• How to Minimize Your Risk

Just click Here to Watch Carolyn Bordens "Secrets to Maximizng your Profits and Minimizing your Risk"

Rigzone: Rail Delivery of Oil, Petroleum Products Continues to Increase

From Robin Dupre at Rigzone.....

With U.S. crude oil producing at record amounts and outstripping pipeline capacity, the country is relying heavily on railroads to move new crude oil to refineries and storage centers, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Wednesday.

The total amount of crude oil and refined products being transported by rail is close to 356,000 carloads during the first half of 2013, up 48 percent from the same period last year, according to Association of American Railroads.

“U.S. weekly car loadings of crude oil and petroleum products averaged nearly 13,700 rail tankers during the January to June 2013 period. With one rail carload holding about 700 barrels, the amount of crude oil and petroleum products shipped by rail was equal to 1.37 million barrels per day during the first half of 2013, up from 927,000 barrels per day during the first six months of last year. Crude oil accounted for about half of the 2013 daily volumes," reported AAR.

"Increases in rail transportation multifactor productivity can be traced to technical progress, such as improved capital inputs and technological changes in the form of improved methods of service delivery. Improved technology for locomotives, freight cars, and track and structures have increased reliability and reduced maintenance needs," added the United States Department of Transportation.

A large portion of the produced crude oil is from North Dakota where there is not enough pipeline capacity to move supplies, therefore dependency on delivery of oil by rail is substantial. North Dakota currently ranks as the second largest oil producing state after Texas, reported EIA.

"The roughly 700,000 barrels per day of crude oil, which includes both imported and domestic crude oil, moved by rail compares with the 7.2 million barrels of crude oil the United States produces daily," added EIA.

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Shell Names Ben van Beurden as new CEO

Shell (RDS.A) has named Ben van Beurden, the head of its Downstream business, as CEO to replace Peter Voser, who had already announced he is leaving the company. Van Beurden will take over in January next year. He joined Shell in 1983 and has held a number of technical and commercial positions in the company's Upstream and Downstream operations.

A "solid Shell man," new CEO Ben van Beurden has worked for Shell [RDS.A] for 30 years, turning around the chemicals business and spending 10 years in its liquefied natural gas business. But Chairman Jorma Ollila's comment that the new CEO would "continue to... develop the strategic agenda we have set out" suggests there's no real change ahead - which leaves little for investors to get excited about.


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The 30 Second Technical Flash Chart Report on U.S. Equities

Chris Vermeulen shows us how U.S. Equities opened higher on Monday and are, in his opinion,  setting up for a sharp pullback based on technical analysis using trends, cycles, momentum, volume, market breadth and key resistance zones.

Take a look at his chart work for a quick flash of what he thinks.

Entire article > "The 30 Second Technical Flash Chart Report on US Equities"



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Technical Analysis Video – Precious Metals, Crude Oil, Bonds, SP500

What a great way to start our week. Our trading partner Chris Vermeulen has just released a new video covering precious metals, crude oil, bonds and the SP500. Do you think WTI crude oil is topping out here? Is gold bottoming? Let's see how Chris is trading this market this week.

Just click here to watch "Technical Analyis Video – Precious Metals, Crude Oil, Bonds, SP500"


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Weekly Precious Metals Market Recap with Mike Seery

It's time to check in with our trading partner Mike Seery on where he sees precious metals heading for the end of the 1st week of trading in July.

The precious metals continue their downturn as higher interest rates are pressuring gold down $37 an ounce at 12.14 which is a new closing low and as I’ve been telling people through many previous blogs to keep selling the precious metals as there really is no reason to own gold since deflation is in the air not inflation.

Silver futures are down $.95 in the July contract at 18.75 looking to retest recent lows with the possibility of prices going down to the $15 level here in the next couple of weeks as the tide has turned in the commodity market.

I have been recommending a short copper position for quite some time as copper was absolutely pummeled today down 1100 points at 3.06 a pound placing a stop above the 10 day high which is 3.17 and I do believe copper prices are headed steadily lower possibly down to 2.50 in the next 4 to 6 weeks as demand has weakened tremendously in China and higher interest rates will put the kibosh on copper prices in my opinion.

All of the precious metals are trading far below their 20 and 100 day moving average and I believe that will continue for quite some time as the U.S dollar is the place to park money due to the fact that interest rates are much higher here than overseas which will continue to put pressure on the precious metals in my opinion.

Precious metals trend....lower, Chart structure.....excellent.

Here's more commodity news [including sugar, grains, orange juice, cotton, coffee] from Mike for the first week of July....Just click here.

Leading Sectors, Cycles and Momentum Point To Drop This Week

Chris Vermeulen's trade set up for the first week of July.....

As talked about almost two weeks ago when the SP500 trend reversed to the down side we have been waiting for a bounce in price to short the market (buy and inverse ETF). That happened last week and now we are waiting for the market to shake out the short positions and suck in as many traders to get long before the next wave of major selling takes place.

It seems traders are becoming bullish again as prices rise and they are dumping their precious metal positions and rotating into equities again from the looks of things. Also if you know the Dow Theory then you know the industrial and transportation sectors tend to lead the broad market. Well today the only two sectors trading lower are just those two.

See the charts for a visual

They Just Rang A Bell On Gold and Gold Stocks

Our trading partner David A. Banister of Market Trend Forecast has been the go to guy on gold and precious metals. Let's check in with Banister and see if he thinks the bottom is in for gold.

As they say on Wall Street, “They don’t ring bells at the top” and for sure they usually don’t give you a phone call at the bottom either. Many heads have rolled trying to call this recent near 2 year downdraft in Gold in terms of bottom callers, me included. I thought we would never get much below 1440 or so from the 1923 highs, but alas we all know we did.

What makes me think that last week put in the final Gold low for the bear cycle? Too many things to mention, but based on the work I do enough to give me some chutzpah to make this call now. The 1180’s are very close to a classic ABC 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the prior 34 month bull cycle. That cycle ran from October 2008 to August 2011 with a rally from $681 to $1900’s area. The most recent 21 plus month decline dropped right into the 61% pivot retracement of that entire move, and over a Fibonacci 21 month period as well! Human behavior does repeat over and over again, and as we all know in hindsight at the tops everyone is bullish and at the bottoms everyone is bearish.

I think it’s pretty much as simple as that. Investors get overly optimistic and exuberant in all kinds of asset classes and finally at the highs everyone believes the rally can only go on and on forever. At the opposite near the bottoms nearly everyone is calling for lower prices and further catastrophe ahead. Stocks in the sector are priced for near bankruptcy. Newsletter writers are universally bearish, and the small trader has a big short position. Only a few weeks ago the Bullish Percentile index measurement on the Gold Stock Index was at 0! That means nobody was bullish on the Gold stocks by the measure that is used. We quickly had an 8% rally in the index after that reading, then in the last few weeks we came all the way back down again to even lower levels!

If you watched the action last Thursday as Gold was melting down below $1200 a curious thing happened. The gold miners were ignoring the move and going green! On Friday, as Gold reversed to 1234 they went ballistic with one of my favorite miners going up 16% on Friday alone on the highest volume in 5 years! Those are the signals I’ve been waiting for to call the capitulation lows. My guess is some money managers are front running the coming 3rd quarter rotation they see in Gold and Gold Miners, Copper, Coal, and other commodity stocks.

So below is my basic GLD ETF multiyear chart using very simple monthly views to see the big picture. You can see a classic ABC pattern of bear market correction and now a near 61.8% perfect Fibonacci retracement of the prior leg up. I’d say enough is enough, pick your spots and start buying.




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Precious Metals Futures Weekly Update

The precious metals rallied on Friday afternoon but have been absolutely crushed this week with gold settling at 1,226 an ounce up around $15, however prices hit a new 3 year low this week trading as low as 1,179 and as I’ve been recommending in many previous blogs to be short the precious metals sector but at this point in time with extreme volatility & very poor chart structure I’m recommending to be taking profits and sit on the sidelines.

Silver futures finished up $.95 today at 19.49 in the July contract and as I stated in previous blogs I thought silver could hit the $18 level and it did trade as low as 18.18 in the early session today, however I still believe prices are headed lower and I would not be bullish the precious metals at this time.

Copper futures which I’ve been recommending short positions across the board finished at 3.0560 a pound unchanged for the trading day but I do believe prices are headed substantially lower from these levels as higher interest rates are keeping a lid on precious metals prices so look for copper prices to possibly hit 2.50 in the next month or so.

The trends have really been strong in recent weeks and if you been listening to any of my recommendations you have been doing extremely well and I do believe that commodity prices are still headed lower so take advantage of it by selling the futures contract or by buying bear put spreads limiting your risk to what the spread premium costs.

Trend: Lower – Chart structure: Terrible

Posted courtesy of our trading partner Mike Seery

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