Glencore’s Instructive Reversal On Commodity Prices

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 8, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) On March 1, 2016, Glencore (GLNCY) announced its preliminary 2015 earnings results. During a media conference call, CEO Ivan Glasenberg declared a bottom for commodities. In the subsequent investor/analyst conference call, … Read more

T2108 Update (February 24, 2016) – Buyers Stage A Notable Reversal As the JP Morgan Bottom Holds

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

T2108 Update (February 16, 2016) – Follow-Through On Oversold Bounce

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

ConocoPhillips: A Cautionary Tale from the Oil Patch

ConocoPhillips (COP) announced Q4 and full year 2015 financial results on the morning of February 4, 2016. The news included a capitulation to the on-going deterioration of business conditions in the oil patch: COP slashed its dividend by two-thirds: “ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) today announced it is taking actions to maintain its strong balance sheet in … Read more

T2108 Update (February 3, 2016) – The Waterfall and the Whale: An Oversold Near Miss

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

Bullard Helps Push Out the Next Rate Hike Further Into the Year

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on January 15, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) The recent movements in crude oil prices are very substantial in historical context. Headline inflation will return to target once oil prices stabilize, but recent further declines in global oil prices … Read more

T2108 Update (January 26, 2016) – Rally or Regress: A Fed-Inspired Binary Trade

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

(Vainly) In Search of the Correlation Between Oil and the S&P 500

We hear the relationship claimed so casually and so frequently, we probably no longer give it a second thought. For example, on December 30th, the S&P 500 (SPY) lost 0.7%. Searching for an explanation, CNBC ran the all-too familiar headline “Dow closes down triple digits as oil slide weighs.” Oil lost 3.3% on the day … Read more

Doubling Down on the United States Oil ETF While Oil-Related Names Gain A Reprieve from Calamity

The trade on a rangebound United States Oil (USO) is now failing (see “The Commodities Crash Accelerates: Scenarios for Trading Oil” for a description). Oil has continued its collapse past the historic 2009 lows and has helped to drive USO to fresh all-time lows. Source: US. Energy Information Administration, Crude Oil Prices: West Texas Intermediate … Read more

OPEC Slams the Oil Patch – A Quick Look At the Reverberations

On Friday, December 4, 2015, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) slammed the oil patch by adjourning without an agreement to put a cap on production. This quote from a Bloomberg article probably sums up the implications best: “‘It means more OPEC oil next year,’ Jamie Webster, a Washington-based oil analyst for IHS … Read more