Trading Crude Oil, Again

The barrel count is usually a nice day to trade and today was no exception with most signals offering good follow through.

I was using the 3 minute chart with the 34 and 89 EMAs for direction and waited for the 34 to get on the trade side of the 89 before taking any signals on the range bar chart.

Today's entry signals on the 16 tick range bar chart.
(click on charts to view)

Oil Went Up, Oil Went Down

Well it was an interesting month for crude oil while I was away. Crude had been bouncing off the daily 34 EMA (white) for months and had not broken the 89 EMA (yellow) since February. Now it looks like the 144 EMA (blue) could be next.

We shall see.

NYMEX Light Sweet Crude Oil Daily Chart (click to view)


The fall for natural gas has been even more dramatic as the seasonal demand drops it adds to the short pressure.

NYMEX Henry Hub Natural Gas Chart

Hopefully volume sticks around for August and we see more action like this.

If you want to see some pics from this trip and others check out the solfest photography link.

http://flickr.com/photos/dudesolfest/

Vacation

I am taking a month off, returning to work July 29. As I leave we have crude oil making new all time highs so it will be interesting to see where it is in a month.

I won't be posting while I'm gone so feel free to have a look through the blog archives. I have moved them up just to the right of this post.

They are all brilliant I'm sure. :)

So instead of looking at charts all day I will be looking at this.

Oil rises past $140 a barrel

NEW YORK: "Oil futures rose to more than $140 a barrel, a new record, Thursday after OPEC's president said oil prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production."

(click on the read more icon for the full International Herald Tribune story)

read more digg story

Crude Oil Trades Over $140

Crude oil exploded out the gate this morning with a nice run and then wound up the day with a run over $140.

This should keep the politician's tongues wagging for a while.

13 Tick Range Bar Charts (click on charts to view)

Trading Crude Oil

The market was anticipating a build up of crude oil inventory this week as refiners are not all that keen on buying $136 oil. They cannot sell the refined product at a decent profit.

That's right, the price of gasoline should actually be higher based on the price of crude oil.

Why isn't it?

Count the number of gas stations in your neighborhood. There are simply too many and the competition is fierce. They really only make money selling all the "junk" in the store, not by selling gasoline.

Anyway back to the trading, in this case the pre inventory report guessing was correct as the price just kept falling after the report was released.

Nice day to trade.