Oil: Gap Down
January 8th, 2009WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
I was going to buy the United States Oil ETF on Friday, but it was sharply higher. I refuse to chase, though, so I’m going to wait for a pullback (that may or may not come).
—Oil
Wow. Wow. Wow. This is why I never chase! I was watching USO in realtime earlier today and it was down over 6%. It clearly looked like the selling could pick up, but I had no way of knowing by how much. I sent a limit buy order in for USO at $34, which was fully $1 beneath the spread at the time. I thought, “No way will this get hit, but who knows???”
I found a trade execution report in my inbox later. USO ended the session down 10.68% at $33.37.
* shaking head *
Incredible.
Is this thing going to take another leg down? I have no idea, but I actually wouldn’t mind if it did. I’m going to start accumulating more USO if it goes lower from here. I can’t buy gold in the $300 to $400 range anymore, but oil in the $20 to $40 range would do nicely, thanks.
Unless, of course, this is THE END of the effing world…
It has looked like THE END to me for about 20 years, but here we are. So, I only place the odds of an actual END situation at about 10%. (By END I mean: The release of strategic nuclear weapons.) As you can see above, I’m betting that the horror show will creak, stammer and murder its way even further into oblivion before the blinding flashes, electromagnetic pulses and mushroom clouds appear.
Happy trading.
Via: Reuters:
Oil hovered below $43 on Thursday after tumbling 12 percent overnight, its largest percentage drop in seven years, as a U.S. government report showed crude stocks rose much more than expected in the world’s top energy consumer.
The market will be eyeing weekly U.S. jobless claims due later in the day, and December non-farm payroll and unemployment data on Friday, which are likely to be dismal, for further clues on future demand.
U.S. crude for February delivery CLc1 was up 14 cents at $42.77 a barrel by 0230 GMT, after sinking 12.3 percent to $42.63 overnight, the biggest single-day percentage loss since Sept. 24, 2001.
London Brent crude LCOc1 was up 8 cents at $45.94.
“Oil prices are likely to remain choppy, and in the near term, the next potential trip-wire is U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday, which is likely to add to concerns over the U.S. economic outlook,” said David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
*Cry* You and I grew up under the constant threat of the same sword. Somehow, though, you never entertained the notion that it had gone away. Learning it was there was bad; finding out that it had never gone away and that oh, by the way, ponies can’t fly, was much, much worse.
Is the phrase “monkey business” considered racist yet?
re: Unless, of course, this is THE END of the effing world…
It’s funny, but the last few weeks I’ve really been thinking, “Holy shit, it’s really happening” — “it” being the scary times a-comin’. I think of myself as “tuned in”, but it never really got to me before — it was always a few years away. Maybe it’s just the winter, maybe it’s the fact that if I lost my job (which supports me, my wife, and my 3 kids), I’d be up shit’s creek. Being the typical self-centered American pig, it’s one thing when other folks lose their jobs, another when…
Anyway, fwiw, it seems like we are a lot closer to chaos, real collapse, than we’ve been in my (forty-something) lifetime.
Happy f-ing new year!
The way volatility is in these post-terminal-diagonsis markets, one could probably roll up into hundreds of millions in compounded profits using a combination of technical analysis, luck, and anticipation of major distortions caused by the usual suspects. However, no matter how much success you have these days, you’re ultimately competing not against sharky fund managers, but against the Fed’s capacity to inflate. That’s the best case scenario.