if i traded oil regularly, i would have a desktop that took a kind-of top-down approach to looking at the market. it's a macro approach that helps develop a framework for your analysis; this in turn helps you assess the overall context of the market, and determine what information is relevant and currently driving price. you'll have more conviction in your trades and more confidence in your decisions. so, if a trade moves against you 10 tics or with you10 tics, you'll have a much better idea whether you should be looking to get out, hold, or add.


weekly pivot just to put price into perspective


15 min vwap, 60min monthly vwap, mp, and daily chart


oil's version of the $vix for volatility, commodity sector etf, canadian dollar and gasoline
are currently the 2 highest correlated instruments to crude


point&figure ( w/gomi cd) gives you a very good visual representation of price-action


gomi ladder is for order flow

@tigertrader

Thank you for the pdf

It got me to thinking/ research etc

Here's a list of the many different oils and country of origin

Within the pdf we've a graph of WTI (USA, Ok) , Brent (UK) , Dubai , Tapis (Malaysia) , Mars (USA, Gulf Coast)

List of crude oil products - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia-Bill_M

WilleeMac 

Within the pdf we've a graph of WTI (USA, Ok) , Brent (UK) , Dubai , Tapis (Malaysia) , Mars (USA, Gulf Coast)

Of those only Brent & WTI have liquid financial markets.
Dubai, Tapis & Mars do all trade but mostly over-the-counter ("OTC") and not electronically.
LLS (Light Louisiana Sweet) is another crude that trades regularly OTC.
If your doing research you might want to add Oman & Urals (Russian) to your research list but not sure either trades financially.

@SMCJB

Thank you

I did not realize there's that many different grades of black goo, the reason for post

/CL is about all I can or want to handle (no pun intended)

-Bill

Here's a FREE service to add to your toolbox

tothetick dot com

What they provide is daily email's with download/ fillable pdf's for the major futs

As well they use settlement price for this, that, and the other........

-Bill

Full disclosure - I have no interest in this service, only an FYI

WilleeMac 

@SMCJB Thank you I did not realize there's that many different grades of black goo, the reason for post /CL is about all I can or want to handle (no pun intended) -Bill

Oh yeah there are hundreds of different types of crude that all yield very different products when run through a refinery. Almost every crude field produces a different crude.

Unbeknownst to most the NYMEX Crude Contract ISN'T a WTI contract, it's actually Light Sweet Crude contract. There are long list of crudes that you can deliver into the [AUTOLINK]contract[/AUTOLINK] at varying price differentials. It get's called WTI though because that is the benchmark crude for the differentials and the crude that in reality is nearly always delivered. Similarly what we call Brent is not actually Brent any more. Brent production has declined to the point that have had to include other similar North Sea crudes. The Brent Index is now actually a BFOE index representing Brent, Forties, Oseberg & Ekofisk. (Brent in itself is actually 'Brent Blend' as it's a mixture of several different close proximity North Sea Fields.)

Sweet (Sour) crudes are crudes that have Low (High) sulfur content.
Light crudes have a low density and yield a high proportion of light hydrocarbon fractions such as Gasoline, Diesel, Jet etc
Heavy crudes have a high density and yield a high proportion of heavy hydrocarbon fractions such as Fuel Oil.

A Light Sweet Crude (such as Brent & WTI) will yield a lot of high value petroleum products () that have a low sulfur content. (ie Low Sulfur Gasoline & Diesel)
A Heavy Sour Crude will yield more lower value petroleum products (Fuel Oil etc) that have a high sulfur content.

Not surprisingly Light Crudes are worth more than Heavy Crudes and Sweet Crudes are worth more than Sour Crudes.

For anybody interested Petroleum Refining for the Non-Technical Person <Amazon Link> is an old but excellent book.

I'm in! Not sure at this point since everyone is looking for the bottom. I wonder where the big boys have decided it will be?

DiemTrader 

I'm in! Not sure at this point since everyone is looking for the bottom. I wonder where the big boys have decided it will be?

@trendwaves

As good a call as any

-Bill

Throwing this out there (@trendwaves , @DiemTrader, et al)

There's some interesting volume showing up

12-16-14 my guess is folks are squaring up for contract roll, it may have started on 12-12 and 12-15. (Also we have the comments (OPEC?) no price is to low for oil, go to hell Russia and North Dakota.)

12-18 actual roll

Typical Holiday volume

However volume this week esp TUE WED & FRI

Reminds me of that Dodge commercial "you about to find out"

Anyway food for thought

-Bill




EDIT2

The above numbers are based on CME settlement, not platform close