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Maybe Oil Goes to $70 on its Way to $40
A retrace that fills open gaps and kisses the 50-day moving average surprises everyone who was confident oil was heading straight down to $40/barrel.
When the conventional media ordains oil inevitably dropping to $40/barrel, I start looking for something else to happen--like oil going to $70/barrel. There are number of reasons this isn't as farfetched as it might seem at the moment.
1. The huge gap begging to be filled on the chart of the Energy Select Sector exchange-traded fund XLE and a bunch of other energy-sector stocks and etfs. Gaps like this usually get filled sooner rather than later.
2. A bounce back to the 50-day moving average on the WTI oil index around $73 would be unsurprising. As the old saying has it, nothing goes down in a straight line, and since oil fell in a parabolic curve down, some sort of retrace to a key technical level of resistance is to be expected.
There are many ways to calculate Fibonacci levels, but a retrace to the 38.2% level equates to the mid-$70s. By my reckoning, the natural starting place is the recent high around $116 in 2011 to the recent low around $53. The 38.2% level is $24 + $53 = $77.
Maybe price doesn't retrace all the way to the mid-$70s, but the possibility shouldn't be discounted.
3. Too many punters have bet on oil dropping straight to $40/barrel, and all those put options offer the big financial players an incentive to spark a short-covering rally that outruns stops and scoops all the money by options expiration on January 16, 2015.
The more puts there are at $70/barrel (and equivalent levels in energy etfs, oil services stocks, etc., the greater the incentive to push the short-covering rally higher than expected.
4. The parabolic drop in oil resulted more from the panicky unwinding of a crowded and overleveraged trade than supply-demand. As I explained in my series on the financialization of oil, the financial pyramiding of oil is much less visible than supply and demand, so the mainstream media focuses on what's easy, i.e. supply and demand issues.
Crowded trades (trades where almost everyone is on one side of the boat) unwind in precisely this sort of freefall. Once the trade has been unwound, however, the selling cascade exhausts itself and insiders who know better start buying. Buying begets buying, shorts start covering, and voila, a retrace that fills open gaps and kisses the 50-day moving average surprises everyone who was confident oil was heading straight down to $40/barrel.
Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy(Kindle, $9.95)(print, $20)
Are you like me? Ever since my first summer job decades ago, I've been chasing financial security. Not win-the-lottery, Bill Gates riches (although it would be nice!), but simply a feeling of financial control. I want my financial worries to if not disappear at least be manageable and comprehensible.And like most of you, the way I've moved toward my goal has always hinged not just on having a job but a career.You don't have to be a financial blogger to know that "having a job" and "having a career" do not mean the same thing today as they did when I first started swinging a hammer for a paycheck.
Even the basic concept "getting a job" has changed so radically that jobs--getting and keeping them, and the perceived lack of them--is the number one financial topic among friends, family and for that matter, complete strangers.
So I sat down and wrote this book: Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy.
It details everything I've verified about employment and the economy, and lays out an action plan to get you employed.
I am proud of this book. It is the culmination of both my practical work experiences and my financial analysis, and it is a useful, practical, and clarifying read.
Test drive the first section and see for yourself. Kindle, $9.95 print, $20
"I want to thank you for creating your book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. It is rare to find a person with a mind like yours, who can take a holistic systems view of things without being captured by specific perspectives or agendas. Your contribution to humanity is much appreciated."
Laura Y.
Gordon Long and I discuss The New Nature of Work: Jobs, Occupations & Careers(25 minutes, YouTube)
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