Friday, October 22, 2010

China's Oil Demand Rises on Year On Year Basis

China's apparent oil demand in September rose 5.1% year on year to 35.53 million metric tons (mt) or an average of 8.68 million b/d, according to Platts' analysis of data from the People's Republic of China. However, September demand is almost unchanged from August's 35.54-million-mt level. Meanwhile, China's apparent oil demand in the first nine months of the year totaled 317.7 million mt or an average of 8.52 million b/d, up 10.25% from the same period of 2009, according to Platts' data.



Chinese refiners processed a total 34.91 million mt or an average 8.53 million b/d of crude in September. This is up 6.35% from a year ago, but just 0.52% higher than August, according to data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics on Oct. 21. The refiners' collective crude throughput from January to September was 310.74 million mt, 13.48% higher from a year ago. Chinese crude imports in September hit a new historic high of 23.29 million mt, or around 5.7 million b/d.

"The crude available to China in September, including domestic production and net imports, was 40.09 million mt, but the throughput was only 34.91 million mt. So a little over 5 million mt of crude presumably went into storage, the highest in a month so far this year," said Vandana Hari, Asia editorial director at Platts. "At the same time, China's monthly refined product imports continued to come off June's high of 3.64 million mt, while the country stepped up product exports last month. The flattening of implied oil demand in September could be a precursor to an easing of the country's runaway oil demand growth rate for the remainder of 2010."

Courtesy of Rigzone.Com



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Phil Flynn: Project China

In futures, one day you are in and the next day you are out. Oil traders wanted data from China to wow them but that failed. The oil bulls have all of their hopes and aspirations tied up into expectations of strong China demand and when they fail to blow us away, well the bulls have to leave the runway.

China GDP number just barely met or exceeded market expectations and for a market that lives or dies on China surprising us, it just was not enough. It bored us. At the same time in the aftermath of the Chinese’s government increasing interest rates the higher than expected 3.6 percent rise in the Chinese Consumer Price index should increase the odds that we will see more moves by the Chinese to try to reign in what they are starting to see as an inflation problem.

Oil bulls also had to be dismayed by the fact that despite the fact that the Chinese imported a record amount of crude last month, it seems it went into storage as opposed to the refinery. Data from the China Mainland Marketing Research Company showed that China processed 8.5 million barrels of oil a day which according to Bloomberg News was the smallest increase since March of 2009. A sign that demand may already be......Read the entire article.


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Zacks: Haliburton a Near Term Buy?

Earlier this week, major oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (HAL) announced its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2010. Now that the analysts have had some time to digest the quarterly performance, they are weighing in with their estimate revisions. Below we cover the results of the recent earnings announcement, subsequent analyst estimate revisions and Zacks ratings for the stock.

Earnings Review
Halliburton's better than anticipated third quarter 2010 results were helped by the strength in the all important North American onshore activity levels (to which the company is heavily exposed through its market share leading pressure pumping business). Earnings per share, excluding special items, came in at 58 cents, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 56 cents and were comfortably ahead of the year ago adjusted profit of 31 cents.

Revenues of $4.7 billion, 30% above the third quarter of 2009, also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.6 billion, as sales increased across the company’s business units. During the quarter, North America accounted for approximately 51% of Halliburton’s total revenues and 65% of its operating income.

Agreement of Estimate Revisions
There is a strong positive agreement among the analysts regarding Halliburton’s outlook. In particular, we see a notable number of estimate revisions over the past 7 days, indicating that the revisions were in response to the company’s third quarter earnings release. Out of 33 analysts covering the stock, 23 have revised their estimates for 2010 upward, while 5 have gone in the opposite direction. Looking forward to 2011, the trend is more or less similar. Out of 33 analysts, 22 hiked their estimates compared to just one negative revision. Estimates are up for the December quarter of 2010 as well. For the current quarter, 21 of the 29 analysts have increased their estimates over the last 7 days, against 5 downward revisions.

Magnitude of Estimate Revisions
As a result of the analysts revising estimates over the past 7 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimates for fiscal 2010 and 2011 have gone up 5 cents (from $1.94 to $1.99) and 13 cents (from $2.49 to $2.62), respectively. Meanwhile, the estimate for the December 2010 quarter is up by 3 cents. The increases are based on the expectations of bullish near-term U.S. land drilling trends, where activity is being driven by oil and liquids-rich plays. This will make the reduction in gas activity less meaningful. Halliburton will continue to be a beneficiary of the bullish rig count fundamentals in the U.S., driven by horizontal drilling in the service intensive plays.

Our Recommendation
Halliburton currently has a Zacks #2 Rank (short-term 'Buy' rating). In the near term, the company is likely to benefit from bullish U.S. land drilling trends, where activity is tracking above expectations. However, new environmental regulations for hydraulic fracturing in the shale plays, the intensely competitive nature of the market, and depressed natural gas prices will continue to overhang the stock during the longer-term, accounting for our Neutral recommendation.

Courtesy of  Zack.com


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Crude Oil Bears Appear to Have a Clear Near Term Advantage, Here's Fridays Numbers

Crude oil was higher due to short covering overnight but remains below the 20 day moving average crossing at 81.78. Stochastics and the RSI remain bearish signaling that sideways to lower prices are possible near term.

If December extends this week's decline, trendline support drawn off the August-September lows crossing near 78.10 is the next downside target. Closes above the reaction high crossing at 84.80 are needed to confirm that a short term low has been posted.

First resistance is the 20 day moving average crossing at 81.78
Second resistance is the 10 day moving average crossing at 82.25

Crude oil pivot point for Friday morning is 81.12

First support is Wednesday's low crossing at 79.90
Second support is the uptrend line drawn off the August-September lows crossing near 78.10


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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Bloomberg: Crude Oil Rises as Reports Show Improved U.S. Economic Outlook

Crude oil climbed in New York after reports showed improvement in the U.S. economy, raising investor expectation fuel demand will increase. Futures retraced some of yesterday’s 2.4 percent decline as Asian equity markets gained following data showing jobless claims fell in the world’s largest economy. The New York based Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators climbed 0.3 percent, matching the forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

“For the short term, the positive economic indicators should support the prices,” said Tetsu Emori, a commodity fund manager at Astmax Ltd. in Tokyo. “Fundamentals aren’t what people are looking at for the market but currencies and financial market conditions.” The December contract added as much as 60 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $81.16 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $81.05 at 11:55 a.m. Singapore time. Yesterday it lost $1.98 to $80.56. The contract has fallen 1 percent this week.

Oil also rose as Labor Department figures yesterday showed U.S. initial jobless claims dropped by 23,000 to 452,000 in the week ended Oct. 15. Chinese crude production gained 9 percent in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said Oct. 21. Oil refining reached 8.5 million barrels a day last month, China Mainland Marketing Research Co. said......Read the entire article.



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Commodity Corner: Crude Falls as Dollar Rebounds

Crude futures fell Thursday as economic worries resurfaced and the dollar rebounded against the euro. Oil prices for December delivery settled at $80.56 a barrel, down 2.4 percent from the previous day. Prices continued to feel the ripple from China's decision Tuesday to increase interest rates. As the Chinese government reported, projected third quarter gross domestic product growth fell to 9.6 percent from a 10.3 percent growth rate in the second quarter.

The second largest oil consumer after the U.S., China, is estimated to account for approximately 40 percent of an expected 2.1 million barrel per day increase in global oil demand this year and approximately one third of a 1.2 million-b/d increase next year, according to the International Energy Agency. The dollar rose 0.3 percent against the euro Thursday after falling earlier as much as 0.6 percent. Light, sweet crude futures traded between $80.09 and $82.70.

Likewise, natural gas futures plummeted to new 13-month lows Thursday. Henry Hub natural gas decreased 4.8 percent and settled at $3.37 per thousand cubic feet. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that natural gas inventories grew by 93 billion cubic feet last week, marking the sixth consecutive above average weekly build. According to the inventory report, the U.S. had 3.68 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in underground storage last week.

The National Hurricane Center observed a tropical storm headed toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Thursday. The system, Tropical Storm Richard, formed in the northwestern Caribbean Sea. Meteorologists predict that the storm may continue into the Gulf of Mexico, but major impact should be prevented by the high wind shear. The intraday range for natural gas was $3.35 to $3.54 Thursday. November delivery gasoline prices settled at the lowest point since Sept. 29 at $2.04 a gallon, after peaking at $2.08 and bottoming out at $2.03.

Courtesy of Rigzone.Com


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The Dollar-Crude Oil Trade

Dan Dicker, an independent oil trader, shares his dollar-oil trade with CNBC.



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Markets Close Mixed as Commodity Bulls Fight The Stronger Dollar

The U.S. stock indexes closed mixed today. The stock index bulls still have the overall near term technical advantage as price uptrends are still in place on the daily bar charts. Stock index bulls have been very pleased with price action so far this autumn, a time which is normally not favorable to market bulls. My bias is that prices will trade mostly sideways, but with a slight upside bias, into the end of the year.

Crude oil closed down $1.91 at $80.63 a barrel today. Prices closed nearer the session low today. A rebounding U.S. dollar pressed the crude market lower today. Trading has turned very choppy. Bulls and bears are on a level near term technical playing field.

Natural gas closed down 13.3 cents at $3.76 today. Prices closed nearer the session low today and prices hit another fresh contract low. The bears have the solid overall near term technical advantage.

Gold futures closed down $19.70 at $1,324.50 today. Prices closed near the session low today and hit a fresh two week low. Profit taking, a firming U.S. dollar index and lower crude oil prices combined to pressure gold today. Prices also scored a bearish "outside day" down on the daily bar chart, whereby the high was higher and low was lower than the previous session's trading range, with a lower close. Some near term technical damage was inflicted today as a 2 1/2 month old uptrend on the daily bar chart was at least temporarily negated today to begin to suggest that a near term market top is in place. Bulls do still have the overall near term and longer term technical advantage, but have faded this week and need to show fresh power soon.

The U.S. dollar index closed up 27 points at 77.69 today. Prices closed near the session high today and saw short covering in a bear market. Dollar index bears still have the overall near term technical advantage.


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Diamond Offshore: Market Sentiment Is Shifting, Rare Opportunity Is Ending

From Seeking Alpha contributor Hester.....

Earlier in the year, at the end of May, I wrote a bullish article on Diamond Offshore (DO). At the time, shares of Diamond were getting crushed, as the hysteria over the BP spill was in full swing, with many speculating that BP would go bankrupt. The offshore drilling industry was just starting to go under a microscope by regulators. The drilling moratorium was just a twinkle in Ken Salazar's eye. People refused to go near drilling stocks because of regulatory uncertainty, possible increased insurance costs, the risk of another spill, and most importantly, the general dislike of the sector.

It has been nearly five months since all of this, and most of the reasons to sell are nearly gone. The moratorium and regulatory scrutiny is basically over. Insurance costs will be passed on to customers. The BP spill has ended, it is out of the news, and cleanup is moving swiftly. The risk of another spill is the exact same as before the BP spill (which is low), but perception of the risk is lowered. The general dislike and hatred of anything in the sector is slowly ending. The opportunity to purchase great companies at ridiculous prices is may be ending.

Yet, DO is trading at basically the same price as when my article came out and when I started buying. The stock price took a big plunge, from high $60's per share to mid $50's, after the article when people were speculating that Diamond had a spill themselves. However, anybody who took the time to listen to management or actually read past the headlines knew it was a non issue, and the stock eventually recovered to where it is now. So even though these issues are ending, today's buyers are offered a rare opportunity to buy one of the highest quality oil drillers in the world, at just 10 times earnings......Read the entire article.


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Dan Dicker: A Refinery Buy - Frontier Oil

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Pinpointing the Top China ETF Opportunities

We have been watching China and their ETF's pretty closely and this article is a good read as to why these are the top three ETF's.....

Think one ETF is as good as another as long as it’s in the same sector, country, or style as the alternatives? Perhaps that was the case ten years ago. In an effort to differentiate their exchange trade funds from others, however, ETF sponsors have really started to hyper focus their funds’ portfolios…. even within a particular grouping.

Take China based exchange traded funds for example. While the iShares FTSE/Xinhua Chain 25 Index Fund (FXI) may have the lead in hearts and minds of China-hungry investors, other funds of the same ilk may actually be the better choice, depending on your goal or strategy.

Just to put this idea into a stunning perspective, check out this performance chart of all the major China oriented funds for the year to date. While one could reasonably expect a mild amount of disparity when it comes to returns, you’d think they’d all basically offer the same result After all, they’re each investing in the same broad cross section of China’s stocks. Take a look though.


A 17% gain for the leader, and a 5% gain for the laggard, but the same underlying stocks? Wow. Even taking out the ‘Honk Kong’ leader, you’ve still got a 100% disparity from the next best performer and the weakest one. Of course, the different performances come as no real surprise once you look under the hood of these funds and really see what each is holding.

Just like many U.S. based ETFs, the idea of a “cross section of the country’s stocks” can have various meanings. For instance, the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index’s (FXI) biggest two holdings are China Mobile Ltd., and then China Construction Bank Corporation. That sharply contrasts with the two biggest holdings of the iShares MSCI Hong Kong Fund (EWH), which are (in order) Sun Hung Kai Properties, Ltd., and Cheung Kong Holdings, Ltd.

To be clear, this isn’t a complaint. Quite the contrary actually, we should be celebrating these differences, so we can get the most out of a regional based opportunity rather than sit contently holding watered down carbon copies of ETFs. With that in mind, that’s where the real China opportunity comes to light.

They may still qualify as ‘new’, but several sector based China exchange traded funds are plenty liquid enough to trade now, and the performance separation within the group is easily wide enough to prompt a trader to pick and choose certain vehicles.

Take a look at the year to date performance chart of these sector-based ETFs, and take special notice a 20% gap between the leader and the laggard for the year so far.


Our favorites are the three leaders…. the Global X China Consumer ETF (CHIQ), the Claymore/AlphaShares China Small Cap ETF (HAO), and the Claymore/AlphaShares China Real Estate ETF (TAO). We either currently own those names in the ETF portfolio, or intend to own soon. Any of them offer a little more ‘umph’ than FXI does at this point.

The point here is simply to highlight the fact that there are obscure trends within the bigger China trend that are well worth tapping into. That’s one of the focal points of our ETF service, and the approach has been very rewarding.

Check out more of Andrew Hart post at  ETF TRADR.com



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Phil Flynn: French Fried

Alright, I admit it was kind of fun snickering about the French Strikes. You know like joking about the French work ethic (assuming they had one). You know the routine. The French have been striking and staging mass protests that have turned violent as the government moves to take away French entitlements they cannot pay for. The French are to vote on raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 (Sidérer!!!). With an aging French population and years of the government giving the country free goodies, the government is going to have to make much needed reforms or face an inevitable economic collapse.

The strikes have shut down 12 oil refineries in France leading to shortages of diesel and gasoline. The International Oil Daily Reported that, “lost French production is driving dramatic price gains in diesel and jet fuel in Europe, France’s 12 oil refineries, all but one of which has been shut down by national strikes, produce around 60,000 tons of diesel and 30,000 tons of jet a day. But even with refineries at full production, the country is a net importer of both products. Minimal domestic production means France is sucking in products from neighboring Germany, Italy and even Spain, as well as drawing from strategic......Read the entire article.


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Crude Oil Consolidates Some of Wednesday's Rally Overnight

Crude oil was lower overnight as it consolidates some of Wednesday's rally. Stochastics and the RSI remain bearish signaling that sideways to lower prices are possible near term.

If December extends this week's decline, trendline support drawn off the August-September lows crossing near 77.85 is the next downside target. Closes above the 10 day moving average crossing at 82.67 would confirm that a short term low has been posted.

First resistance is the 10 day moving average crossing at 82.67
Second resistance is this month's high crossing at 85.08

Crude oil pivot point for Thursday morning is 81.67

First support is Wednesday's low crossing at 79.90
Second support is the uptrend line drawn off the August-September lows crossing near 77.85


The "Super Cycle" in Gold and How It Will Effect Your Pocketbook in 2010

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

What is Next for the Dollar, SP500 and Gold

The equities market reversed to the upside Wednesday posting a light volume broad based rally. Remember light volume tends to have a neutral to upward bias on stocks, But it was mainly the sharp drop in the dollar which spurred stocks and commodities higher.

Today’s bounce was not much of a surprise for several reasons…
• Overall trend is up, one day sell offs are generally profit taking
• Panic selling on the NYSE tipped us off that the market was oversold
• I don’t think they will let the market fall before the November election
• Intermediate cycle is turning up this week, 3 weeks of upward momentum…

US Dollar Index – 4 Hour Chart
The dollar put in a big bounce this week filling its gap window… Remember most gaps get filled with virtually every investment vehicle so when you see them remember this chart....


SPY ETF – Daily Chart
SP500 has been riding the key moving average up and Tuesday’s sell off tagged the 14MA along with extreme market internal readings telling intraday traders that a bounce is about to take place.


Gold Futures – Daily Chart
You can see gold has done much the same… A sharp profit/stop running sell off, which took the price back down to support. We took a long position to catch this bounce and hopefully a larger move going forward.


Market Sentiment Readings
Tuesday’s pullback was a great reminder of just how over extended the equities market was. These heavy volume sell offs are typical in a bull market. Without regular pauses in price, traders tend to place trailing stops moving them up each day. With traders chasing stocks higher bidding them up instead of waiting for a pullback we get a very large number to stop orders following the price up each day. Then, it’s only a matter of time before a key short term support level is broken at which point the flood gates open and everyone’s stops turn to market orders flooding the stock exchanges with sell orders causing a rapid decline and panic selling. This is exactly what happened on Tuesday which I show in the chart below.

Understanding how to read market internals provides great insight for short term traders looking to make quick high probability trades every week… Market internals are just part of the equation but very powerful on their own with proper money/position management. Both of these intraday extremes were bought on Tuesday in the advanced chatroom (FuturesTradingSignals.com).. We quickly booked profits and moved our stops up in order to protect our capital as the market surged higher.


Mid-Week Market Trend Analysis:
In short, the US Dollar is still in a down trend overall. The Fed’s I would think will continue to hold the market up into the election. It works well for them… they print money which devalues the dollar, and in return boosts stocks and commodities, plus they get trillions of dollars to spend… I’m sure its like kids in a candy store over there.

While everyone is trying to pick a top in this over extended market I think it is crucial to stick with the overall trend and to not fight the Fed. Using the key moving averages on the daily chart as shown in the charts above, continue to buy on dips until the market closes below the 20 day moving average at which point you should abandon ship.

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Chris Vermeulen


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Crude Oil Declines After Dollar Climbs, Chinese Economic Growth Slows

Crude oil declined as investors sold contracts against a rising dollar and the Chinese economy grew at the slowest pace in a year, potentially crimping demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer. Futures dropped as the U.S. currency rose against most of its counterparts, limiting the appeal of commodities as an inflation hedge. China’s economy grew 9.6 percent in the third quarter, according to government data. U.S. gasoline stockpiles increased unexpectedly last week, a report showed yesterday.

“Inventories of crude and products are still high so there is no fear of a global shortage,” Ken Hasegawa, a commodity derivative sales manager at broker Newedge in Tokyo, said in an interview. “The currency markets are key for every market at the moment.” The December contract lost as much as 64 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $81.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $81.93 at 1:03 p.m. Singapore time. Yesterday it advanced $2.38 to $82.54 a barrel.

Crude for November delivery surged $2.28 to close yesterday at $81.77, the biggest gain in 11 weeks. Prices are up 3.7 percent this year. The increase in China’s gross domestic product from a year earlier compared with economists’ median estimate of 9.5 percent. Consumer prices rose 3.6 percent last month, the statistics bureau said at a briefing in Beijing. China’s monthly crude oil processing volume increased the least in......Read the entire article.


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Hot Markets and Commodities, Yet the Small Investor Continues to Miss The Run!

From guest analyst David Banister at Market Trend Forecast.Com.....

All investors can recall the horror during the five months from October 2008 through early March of 2009 as day after day the markets continued to make new lows. That type of catastrophic drop leaves many psychological scars and probably spooked millions of investors out of the stock market for good. To wit, since the March 2009 lows and throughout this new Bull Market Cycle, Investors are pulling money out of equity funds in droves and piling into Bonds. This is the fight or flight mentality taking hold of the herd, and as they continue to disbelieve in the new bull cycle in stocks, the market continues to power higher.

I’ve long been a believer in Elliott Wave Theory, which was developed in the 1930’s by R.N. Elliott. He was a man decades ahead of his time, and to this day his work remains revolutionary in tracking and forecasting market and commodity trends and cycles. This theory forms the basis of my work for market forecasting and trading and investing. While the crowd continues to wait for the next crash, the Elliott wave patterns I’ve been outlining have continued to foretell a bullish move possibly of historic proportions. Taking advantage of this type of move means you need to tune out the noise from CNBC, all of the jobs data, and the negative mantra. Everyone knows that stocks climb a wall of worry, but you have to have a method to let you know to stay long and where best to invest during a super cycle Elliott Bull Wave pattern as we are in now.

My theory back in late February 2009 was that the market was about to bottom and nobody knew it. I wrote an article on 321Gold.com at the time to outline my reasoning and had a chart showing 1200 on the SP 500 as a likely target. At the time the SP 500 was trading around 720 and had not yet completed it’s drop to 666, but was within a few weeks. Interestingly to me anyways, at 666 the SP 500 bottomed and not randomly at all! That 666 figure was an exact 61.8% Fibonacci re-tracement of the 1974 lows to the 2000 highs Bull Cycle. Often crowds act in patterned behaviors that are formed around Fibonacci mathematics. Typical re-tracements are 38%, 50%, 61.8%, or even 78.6%. Combining Elliott Wave patterns with Fibonacci sequences allows me to confirm or help firm up a forecast. That drop over five Fibonacci months completed a multi year cycle from the 2000 highs to the 2009 lows, and it did so right at a clear Fibonacci pivot point. This is why I believe the next many years will be very bullish for stocks, and most investors will not be on board.

Those Fibonacci and Elliott Wave patterns gave me the heads up to start turning bullish, coupled with the sentiment readings which were equally as bearish as the October 2002 bottoms. In addition, there was way too much discussion about deflation. The rubber band in essence was stretched so far to one side on the sentiment gauges and deflation talk, that it would only take a slight shift towards inflation to move stocks much higher.

Fast forward to October 2010, and we now see the ravages of inflation becoming very apparent some 18 odd months later. Gold is at $1350 per ounce, Silver is at $24, the SP 500 is heading back to 1200, Corn, Sugar, Coffee, Copper are all at huge highs. What investor’s don’t understand is stocks are one of your best asset classes in the earlier periods of an inflationary shift, what I would call an inflationary period of prosperity worldwide. Elliott Wave patterns most recently that I outlined on my market forecast service alerted my subscribers to prepare for a massive bull run once the 1094 area on the SP 500 was crossed to the upside.

Given the understanding that inflation would become the new trend, we took multiple positions in Gold stocks and Rare Earth metals stocks ahead of the curve. Some of our recent picks included Hudson Resources at 63 cents in August, now trading at $1.30. Others include BORN at $8, a Chinese Corn based producer of Alcohol that ran to $19 within 7 weeks. We were investing in Rare Earth stocks almost 12 months ago, including REE at $1.80, and it’s now trading over $13.00 a share! Even up to the present time, my ATP service has been positioning our subscribers into Tasman Metals at $1.54, now $2.28 and Quest Rare minerals at $4.10 now $5.50. These moves are happening in stunningly quick periods of time, so being positioned ahead of those moves is crucial.

Gold and Gold stocks have obviously had a very strong move to the upside. Back in August of 2009 I forecasted a massive five year advance in Gold and Gold stocks. This again was entirely based on Elliott Wave patterns I recognized and crowd behavior. Investors will recall the 13 year bull market in tech stocks that started in 1986 when Microsoft went public, and ended in 1999 when AOL was sold to Time Warner for 150 billion. Well, the first five years of the Tech Bull nobody participated except the early investors. Intel and Dell also went public, along with EMC and others. By the time 1991 rolled around, investors kind of woke up and start buying. The problem was they were late, missing the first five years. At that point Tech stocks bucked and kicked up and down with no net gains for three years. Investors gave up again in 1994, and then we began a torrid 5 year rally to 1999. It was not until the last 12 months of that rally that everyone piled in, herd behavior in it’s finest form. Well, we are seeing the same patterns now in the precious metals areas of the market. The final 5 years started in August of 2009, kind of like 1994 in tech stocks. The first 5 years were 2001-2006 where Gold funds returned 30% compounded per year, by the time everyone got on board the funds did nothing for then next three years. Everyone gave up and lost interest, and that was the August 2009 buy signal.

Bringing us full circle, investors continue to shy away from this stock bull market following the five month crash of nearly two years ago. This is exactly the psychology present in an early stage bull market. Going forward from here, I look for the SP 500 to hit 1220 at the top of an Elliott Wave three from the 1040 lows in the summer. That will be followed by a correction pattern and then we will resume the advance to new highs on this bull market stretch from March of 2009. Gold should work it’s way up to $1480-1520 if I’m right on it’s bull move from the $1155 lows this June. Below we have a chart of the SP 500 on a long term basis, and it is currently in the third wave up from the 1010 lows on July 1st. This wave pattern is powerful and should run to at least 1220 intermediately. In time, this multi-year bull market could power to all-time highs and really upset the Bears.


Inflation is taking hold around the world, and stocks are one of your best asset classes to participate. You can follow along by registering for free weekly updates at Market Trend Forecast.Com.




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Brian Shactman: Where is Crude Oil and Gold Headed on Thursday?

CNBC's Brian Shactman discusses the day's activity in the commodities markets, and looks ahead to where oil and gold are likely headed tomorrow.



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Stock Market and Commodities Commentary For Wednesday Evening Oct. 20th

The U.S. stock indexes closed solidly higher today and saw Tuesday's losses quickly erased. The stock index bulls still have the overall near term technical advantage as price uptrends are still in place on the daily bar charts. Stock index bulls have been very pleased with price action so far this autumn, a time which is normally not favorable to market bulls. My bias is that prices will trade mostly sideways, but with a slight upside bias, into the end of the year.

Crude oil closed up $2.28 at $82.44 a barrel today. Prices closed near the session high today after hitting a fresh three week low early on. Sharp losses in the U.S. dollar index and higher stock index future prices today boosted crude.

Natural gas closed up 0.8 cents at $3.903 today. Prices closed near mid range today and saw tepid short covering in a bear market. Prices hit a fresh contract low this week. The bears still have the solid overall near term technical advantage.

Gold futures closed up $9.10 at $1,345.10 today. Prices closed nearer the session high and were supported by a sharply lower U.S. dollar index. Bargain hunters once again stepped in to buy weakness in the gold market, to now suggest Tuesday's low is just another "reaction low" in an overall 2 1/2 month old uptrend on the daily bar chart. Bulls have the overall near term and longer term technical advantage.

The U.S. dollar index closed down 100 points at 77.41 today. Prices closed near the session low today and quickly gave back most of Tuesday's big gains. Dollar index bears still have the overall near term technical advantage and regained some downside momentum today.

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How to Buy Risky Energy Stocks

Dan Dicker, senior contributor at TheStreet, reveals how to buy energy stocks in your 20's.



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Crude Oil Surges on Decline in Dollar, Smaller Than Projected Supply Gain

Crude oil climbed as the dollar tumbled to a 15 year low against the yen and a government report showed a smaller than forecast gain in U.S. stockpiles. Oil increased as much as 2.6 percent as the U.S. currency fell on concern the Federal Reserve’s regional business survey will show a slowing economic recovery. A weaker dollar bolsters the appeal of commodities to investors. An Energy Department report showed that supplies rose 667,000 barrels last week, less than half what was projected in a Bloomberg News survey.

“It’s all the dollar,” said Richard Ilczyszyn, a market strategist at Lind-Waldock, a broker in Chicago. The dollar will probably remain weak until after the Federal Reserve meeting and the congressional elections in November, he said. Crude oil for November delivery rose $1.90, or 2.4 percent, to $81.39 a barrel at 12:07 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil traded at $80.18 a barrel before the release of the inventory report at 10:30 a.m. in Washington.

The November contract expires today. More active December futures increased $1.82, or 2.3 percent, to $81.98. Brent crude oil for December settlement gained $1.91, or 2.4 percent, to $83.01 a barrel on the London based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Futures in New York tumbled 4.3 percent yesterday, the biggest drop since Feb. 4, after an unexpected rate increase by China’s central bank raised speculation that fuel demand will drop in the world’s biggest energy-consuming country......Read the entire article.


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