Market Comments for May 30, 2008 1) Crude stayed in a range of only $3 today, from $126-$129, so more people are talking about a top. Bonds were licking their wounds. 2) Another new word for the lexicon: 'cocooning'. Because of high gas and food prices nobody has enough money to leave the house, so [...]

Market Comments for May 29, 2008 1) It was a day for the history books in crude. The day started out at $128. Weekly inventories had been anticipated to show an increase of 700,000 barrels, but instead, showed a decline of 8.8 million barrels, the biggest fall in 4 years! Crude lept to $133. Then [...]

Market Comments for May 28, 2008 1) Crude plunged to $126  on rumors that Saudi Arabia is increasing production, then lept back up to $131.50. Another $6 range day. It was a great day to sell July 110 puts for $550 which expire in 13 trading days. More than 25% of global oil consumption is [...]

Market Comments for May 27, 2008 1) Crude fell $5. The July 155 calls I strongly advised you to sell at $550 last Wednesday, fell to $260. In the meantime, natural gas hit a new high of $12.20. This is a gain of 57% from my recommended entry level of $7.75 last January. 2) Short [...]

Market Comments for May 23, 2008 1) The markets are now totally fixated by oil. Every financial instrument, from equities, to bonds, to currencies, are now being driven by the price of crude. Every technical service I subscribe to are saying that all oil related investments are sells, including crude, oil major equities, oil services, [...]

Market Comments for May 22, 2008 1) Crude gave back yesterday's $5 melt up, falling from an overnight high of $135.50 to $130. The head of  the New York Mercantile Exchange says that speculators account for only 20% of turnover in the energy contracts and that half of those are long, while the other half [...]

Market Comments for May 21, 2008-Special Energy Issue 1) Crude hit an all time high of $133.85 on the back of an unexpectedly large drop of 5 million barrels in inventories. A build had been expected. This is a big miss. The stock market had discounted a crude spike to $130. It is now discounting [...]

Market Comments for May 20, 2008 1) Crude hit a new high of $129.70 on Boone Pickens' forecast of $150/barrel this year. The Dow plunged 202 points. Global oil production is 85 million barrels/day and demand is 87 million barrels/day. End of story. Until the two align, prices will go up.  At that price the [...]

Market Comments for May 19, 2008 1) Crude futures are moving towards contango, indicating a near term easing of supply fears. Contango exists when the far dated futures contracts are selling for more than front month futures, the normal condition in commodity futures markets (because your have to pay interest to maintain a long position). [...]

Market Comments for May 16, 2008 1) Goldman Sachs (GS) put out a report predicting that the price of crude will average $141 during the second half of the year. Crude soared from yesterday's low of $120 to $127.80. I don’t buy it. The Saudi oil minister said that his country would increase production to [...]

Market Comments for May 15, 2008 1) Wild swings in crude today related to the options expiration. There was a proposal from congress that margin trading in crude be eliminated. This would force about one third of the longs in the market to liquidate their positions. Saudi Arabia is sending 16 million barrels of crude [...]

Market Comments for May 14, 2008 1) Natural Gas hit a new 3 year high of $11.80 on unexpected maintenance delays in the transmission system. Surprise, surprise! For natural gas to trade at the same BTU value as crude, it needs to rise to $25, or crude has to fall to $67/barrel. Crude has become [...]

Market Comments for May 13, 2008 1) New high in crude at $127. Natural Gas hit $11.70, and is now selling at a 47% discount to crude on a BTU basis. 2) You can now buy a home ethanol distiller for $7,000 after rebates. The EFuel 100 Microfueler will convert 70 pounds of sugar into [...]

Market Comments for May 12, 2008 1) The US now accounts for 24% of world GDP and the emerging markets 30%. Expect the US to shrink and emerging markets to grow substantially from here. 2) The USDA put out a very negative crop report due to poor weather during the planting season. Next year's corn [...]

Market Comments for May 9, 2008 1) Crude hits $126. Fact of the day: The US uses 25 barrels of crude per person per day, Europe 12, Japan 6, and China 1. Natural Gas hit $11.60, which I expected. 2) Google has become the oxygen of the Internet and is going from strength to strength. [...]