Good morning, everyone. Well, the market is still clinging to The Trendline (at this point, its importance merits the respect of capitalization) like crazy. We managed to slip nicely last night, but the /ES climbed 30 points for No Particular Reason simply to recapture the aforementioned line. It’s like a love affair that cannot be tempered.
Looking back a few more days, we can see how, last week, prices meandered to the line, and it’s been playing hopscotch with it every since. We need a major exogenous event (I’m counting on a stray asteroid) to shake things loose from this ridiculous dance.
Crude oil, to my regret, is up about 2.5% right now. I’m not short crude per se (nor have I been for years), but I do have puts on XOP, APA, COP, HAL, and SLB.
Of course, an energy bear would freak out at the chart above, but it’s all about context. If you look at a longer time scale, you can see that crude oil has actually done nothing for four or five months. It seems to be basically stuck in the mid 70s.
A quick look at the USD/JPY is encouraging, as the dollar continues to pick up strength. In the few minutes I’ve been composing this post, the /ES went from being up 12 to being up just 1, but this wiggles and waggles pre-market don’t usually mean too much.
In general the market has a case of the doldrums, which is what makes it so tough to write about these days. Let’s roll out a classic from the early 1980s to see if we can encourage some negative price action.
