Greetings from the Centurion Lounge at San Francisco International Airport, where my beloved son and I are preparing to fly off to, yes, another fencing tournament. This place is good for my frail ego, since my kids have been dropping some broad hints about me putting on a few pounds, and seeing the spheres that inhabit this place makes me feel less pudgy. I guess the upper middle class traveling sort likes to chow down. But this little anecdote isn’t why you’re here. Let’s talk about a few charts.
I am, as you might guess, still utterly short. I have 43 positions, 40 of which are individual equities (largely in energy) and 3 simple ETFs. The ES has been banging around, going nowhere in particular, for two solid months now. The lines cleanly define the diminishing range, and gee willikers, I’d love to see us break the lower boundary. I’m traveling, so that can only help, at least for Friday.
We remain at the mercy of what the Japanese Yen is doing. We’ve got a decent amount of room to the downside (tinted in green), but a fight back higher could still happen within the confines of the downtrend. It sure would be nice to get a steady slip lower last more than a few hours. All this back-and-forth stuff is driving me to drink. (Which is free here at the lounge).
I have no position in anything gold-related, but I’ve gotta tell ya, I’m getting a Funny Feeling ™ that it’s going to break to the upside. I know that we just started falling away from a descending trendline, but today I noticed a cup with handle pattern (green tint). If we bust that trendline, stand aside, because I think precious metals are really going to start rockin’.
Lastly, and for me most importantly, is crude oil. This isn’t at the mercy of USD/JPY nearly as much as equities, and my dream scenario is a failure at the tint I’ve drawn (which itself is a ways off). I am long ERY, although I sold off about 40% of my position early on Thursday morning to take some profits, and I’ve got about a dozen individual short positions.
My contributions will continue to be sporadic until Monday (although if I didn’t say anything, I bet you wouldn’t have noticed), so I again encourage outside contributors to put up some posts so that Tim & Son can fence their way to glorious victory, whose taste is sweet.
