Blog Archive

Traders have used yesterday’s strength in the Stock indexes as a means to 1) take profits and 2) initiate shorts in the face of potentially errant, albeit emotional, longs..
I was scanning the radio and TV yesterday listening intently to the rave reviews the commentators were giving to the GDP numbers, Obama’s stimulus package and the market’s positive 200 point rally in the Dow…Almost a certain sign to fade those commentators, and low and behold we are 100 points lower today, and the grains are following suit.

I had a side by side chart of the Dow and the soybeans, and the Dow […]

I was just looking at a weekly chart of the crude oil futures..Does anyone remember July 07, with a double top at 146.86 and then 146.75 on the weekly chart? That was marked by Congress person Maxine Waters telling the Chairman of Exxon and other US oil companies that she favored nationalizing the oil industry…

Typically, that was the top. If Maxine had had her way, we would have been long oil as a nation at its all time highs…Ditto for Hillary, who, in the heat of the campaign, suggested windfall profits taxes to build windmills and other green stuff….

Fast Forward to Feb […]

Last Friday’s high on the daily charts in SX was 1029 1/2, yesterdays low was 959 1/2 or a 70 point crap in 4 trading days…Half-way back is 35 cents, which gives us a target of 995, not 85 which I had written earlier..
As of this writing, however the high in SX is around 86 half…. In the wheat, last Friday’s high was 575, Wed’s low was 491 for a 84 cent flush.. Half-way back is 42 cents or a target of 533…

CZ had a high last Friday at 414 with a Wed at 364 for a 50 cent move.. half way […]

Third Quarter GDP rose 3.5 percent, the first rise in 2 years…Econ 101 teaches that is the first sign a ‘recession’ is ending…Initial Unemployment claims were another 500K though, leading me to repeat what Hank Cashin said a few weeks ago, sooner or later there won’t be anyone left to lay-off, so of course that number is going to stop accelerating to the down side..

We have seen a bounce in all the markets today as a result…Crude has bounced 2 bucks, gold 7 dollars, beans are up 12 cents and corn and wheat have followed with 5 cent and 8 cent bounces as well…The […]

Crude has been under pressure again on an off through the day…we have traded as low as 7723 in the front option.. This put beans under pressure early, along with the corn and beans… If you read the post I wrote last last night, I talked about 961 being a band of support on the daily charts…We traded as low as 959 and change, then snapped higher early in a nice whipsaw that punished early shorts.

Typically those chart points are good for 2 or possibly 3 bounces… at which point they are totally violated lower, or serve as a new low from which […]

I just took a look at the longer term weekly charts for Corn, Wheat and Beans…Looking for Support in the wake of the recent 3 day retracement fueled by Index Fund Selling… On the SX charts to begin with, there is s band of support, first and foremost on the daily chart between 961 and 938 *as of this writing, we already had a flush down to the 968 3/4 level*.

A pullback down to the 940 level wouldn’t really be terribly surprising, and it may be necessary to clear out weak longs, get the psychology bearish, and then flip bullish and whipsaw the new […]

I just took a look at the longer term weekly charts for Corn, Wheat and Beans…Looking for Support in the wake of the recent 3 day retracement fueled by Index Fund Selling… On the SX charts to begin with, there is s band of support, first and foremost on the daily chart between 961 and 938 *as of this writing, we already had a flush down to the 968 3/4 level*.

A pullback down to the 940 level wouldn’t really be terribly surprising, and it may be necessary to clear out weak longs, get the psychology bearish, and then flip bullish and whipsaw the new […]

A trader I have great respect and admiration for had a comment today about the recent fund selling… This individual has 35 years experience in the business, and was one of my first mentors in the business. When I walked into the Soybean Pit in 1994 he took me under his wing, pointed out some patterns which, quite frankly, helped me get over a few patches were there were days I had no rhyme or reason for the trade at that time.

In any event, he pointed out today that it was odd that the index funds had announced that October 19th was going […]

Some bullish news in stocks today, some bearish.. On the bullish side, IBM decided to buy back its shares at 2 times the rate it had planned..Seems they think the market is on sale here… On a bearish note, consumer confidence, measured by a private firm, fell to 47.7 down from and expected 53.1 percent, showing that the US consumer isn’t too enamored with what the future may hold currently.

Also bearish was US steel’s third quarter of losses reported today… Its stock fell a quick 6 percent on that news…Its comforting to know that McDonald’s is doing well selling burgers to the world, but […]

Some bullish news in stocks today, some bearish.. On the bullish side, IBM decided to buy back its shares at 2 times the rate it had planned..Seems they think the market is on sale here… On a bearish note, consumer confidence, measured by a private firm, fell to 47.7 down from and expected 53.1 percent, showing that the US consumer isn’t too enamored with what the future may hold currently.

Also bearish was US steel’s third quarter of losses reported today… Its stock fell a quick 6 percent on that news…Its comforting to know that McDonald’s is doing well selling burgers to the world, but […]