After the briefest of corrections, oil prices and stocks have moved onto new highs. The surge in oil past $120 per barrel dominated the market today, in part driven by a new report from Goldman Sachs that discussed the possibility of $150 – $200 per barrel prices. The most interesting aspect of the report was that it contained no NEW reasons for the higher price objectives. Rather the ?drivers? remain the same, which are, in my opinion: 1) still growing world oil demand; 2) lack of non-OPEC supply growth; 3) tight spare OPEC capacity; 4) increasing resource ?nationalism?; and, 5) geopolitical instability (read Iraq, Nigeria etc.).

What is different now, is that the global oil market has awakened to the fact that the demand feedback mechanism is broken and that it could take even higher oil price levels to cause a significant drop in consumption. I discussed this concept in a post on April 23. Specifically, the problem is that the bulk of the world?s energy consumers are shielded from the impact of higher oil prices by national subsidies. This is particularly true in China, India, the Middle East, Russia, Asia and Africa. In effect, every country except in the so-called OECD, or developed world.

The US is really the only major energy consumer with a ?real time? price feed-back economic model. Even the more free market European countries have been shielded from the full impact of higher oil prices by the decline in the US dollar. The conclusion is that almost all of the burden of oil ?demand rationing? falls on the US consumer. In fact, this is exactly what has occurred year-to-date as US oil consumption has declined. However, a projected 200,000 barrel per day decline in absolute US oil demand does not even put a dent in expected global consumption growth of over 1 million b/d. Bottom-line, oil prices may in fact have to rise another 50% to invoke the necessary demand response.

A Two Sided Coin: Oil stocks, particularly the pure plays like APA, CHK, DVN, NXY, OXY (and others) should continue to move higher on the back of higher commodity prices. What remains most problematic, in my view, is how the rest of the equity market works not only at $120 oil, but at an even higher potential price. The commodity market and the equity market appear to be in direct economic opposition. Ironically, if the global growth thesis so widely held is correct, the additional economic pain that could be inflicted on the US via a higher oil price is substantial. As a fading thought, it is probably premature for the Journal to call for an ?end to the US Housing Crisis? as it did so in today?s Op-ed section. Also, the gold story may not be ?over? if oil prices strike even higher. Interestingly, these stocks have experienced a significant correction over the last month. 

One of the readers of this blog wrote me a very eloquent email today expressing his frustration at having a horrible April (in spite of the first quarter being really good). That struck a familiar chord.

What he decided to do was this: he has two accounts, and he has decided to trade one with a bullish bias and one with a bearish bias.

Now, I know many would react saying, "You shouldn't trade with any bias at all! Just do what the charts say!" Well, that's easy to declare, but let's face it – – no one – – not you, not me, not anyone – – can be certain which way the market is going to go in a given period of time. I contend you could ask any experienced chartist to make a bullish or bearish argument for any given stock, and they could probably do a convincing job of it.

I'm getting so disgusted with the OIH-driven nuttiness that I'm considering taking on a similar strategy. I'd be interested to know what others here think of the idea of trading half of one's assets with charts that appear bullish and the other half with charts that appear bearish.

Lately it seems the only stock that's getting hammered is a certain stock of a certain blogger. If all my positions acted like that, I could do a leveraged buyout of Google on my own!

Crude oil, of course, was the focus of the day. It wasn't but a few months ago that $70 oil was considered beyond belief. We're nearly double that now.

The thing which shocks me is that if you took a time machine back a year ago and told traders without a doubt that oil would be trading at over $120 today, they would probably buy every index put on the planet. With the market largely unchanged from a year ago, that would have been a failed trade (with secret information from a time machine, no less!) Truly amazing.

Since a lot of contrarians hang out here (probably because they can no longer afford housing, given the losses over the past seven weeks……..) here's another sign of the times. The most popular article is about how to "get in" on the commodities nuttiness.

There's plenty of credible reasons that oil will indeed continue to soar. I get that. In fact, I just got a beautiful poster about "peak oil" for my office. Still, one can't help but wonder if "oil is going to $200" will be the "Amazon is going to $400" quote for this generation of traders.

Good morning, everyone. I want to give a sincere thank you to everyone who participated in my Cinco de Mayo poll, particularly those that wrote me emails providing their detailed input. I appreciate it, because this is essential feedback for me. *Mwah!*

I look forward to keeping you folks posted on what comes of this. As you might guess, I am very attached to my little creation (Prophet) and am looking forward to breathing new life into it.

As an aside, please be sure to check out the "Watch Lists" on the right column. It will show you all my (short) positions right now, many of which are new. Maybe you'll see a symbol or two worth checking out. You can also look at my current set of representative positions; many of the recent shorts are showing losses, but I'm hopeful that will change very soon. I'll do a post later today……….thanks again!