This is my last post for the day.
Price may bounce later but for my money, it does not meet my rules.

Heading to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico for a week. No trading, just fun.

TransAlp1989 

Heading to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico for a week. No trading, just fun.

Enjoy and have a safe trip

One more, couldn't stay away...

Buy point. Trade at your own risk..!



FOR MY RULES, 1 Min and 5 Min charts must agree to enter a Long. At this time, they do not. Maybe later.. but I am done for the day. There will be other opportunities, after all, Opportunities are like buses, they come and go all the time. I will get on the next bus.

My rules kept me out of doing anything which is fine. That is the reason I have them.

Price reached the green line. If broken, that changes my bullish bias.




Over and out!

LOOKING FORWARD



This channel will guide me and price action will dictate where I go from here.


I always like to review after ASIA opens up.

I found it interesting that on the back of Pierre Andurand finally admitting defeat on his bullish bet we now see Andy Hall closing down his main fund. From a speculative standpoint, one could suggest that both Andurand and Hall received the nod from OPEC that they would cut production whilst the hedgies took speculative long positions and talked up the price of crude.

The fact that so many producers continued hedging relentlessly any time WTI peaked it's head above the $50, coupled with the fact many saw past the Saudis facade of cutting oil exports but increasing refined exports proved a bigger obstacle than they realised. I think the closure of Hall's fund may say something about OPEC's stature...perhaps Hall realised they are no longer the dominant force in these markets and his influence/inclusion within that circle no longer holds the same edge.

SMCJB 

This could be interesting... (well at least for me) Implied Functionality on Crude and Refined Energy Futures Butterflies Effective Sunday, August 6 (trade date Monday, August 7), implied functionality will be enabled for Crude and Refined Energy Butterflies in the first 12 months plus June and December for two additional years. Butterflies are identified with “BF” in tag 762-SecuritySubType in the MDP 3.0 Security Definition (tag 35-MsgType=d) message. LINK

These are live
z7m8z8 currently 2 ticks wide and traded 40 odd times, m8z8m9 and z8m9z9 both 3 ticks wide, and m9z9m0 4 ticks wide.
z7z8z9 currently 3 ticks wide. No market in m8m9m0 due to no market in m9m0.

In this good Bloomberg article, there is a paragraph which to me is utterly puzzling:

Quoting 

2. Shouldn’t OPEC’s cuts have eliminated the glut already? OPEC and allies including Russia agreed to curb output by as much as 1.8 million barrels a day for six months starting in January. Initial confidence from Saudi Arabia -- OPEC’s de-facto leader -- that this would do the job quickly turned into the realization that a longer reduction was required. The extension was deemed necessary because a rally in the price of oil revived investment in the U.S. shale industry, causing production there to boom again.

So: we all know that OPEC's cuts aim to boost oil price. But if the oil price boost revives "investment in the U.S. shale industry, causing production there to boom again", this is a catch-22.

Personally I've seen this as a vicious circle since Nov-2014. Am I being too simplistic, or is this at the very heart of OPEC's problem?

No, I don't think you're being too simplistic. That is a significant part of the OPEC conundrum. Their attempts to cut ultimately put the market into backwardation (supposed oversupply). The US has moved itself into a quasi-swing producer position, which lessens the affect of what OPEC can do. Worth noting the OPEC members and supporters (Russia) are also factor here as they are notorious for cheating. Nevertheless, you are correct in that the US plays a much bigger role in this than they did prior to, say, 2005.

Adding to what @TMCap said, the market being in contango has been an added problem for OPEC. They are selling based upon spot prices while US producers are hedging based upon forward prices which are several dollars higher. Goldman did a good piece discussing this several months ago.

The CL Crude-analysis Thread Kemp - Should OPEC worry about contango and backwardation? ( Goldman's strategy aims to "share growth" between OPEC and shale firms to avoid another repeat of boom and bust in oil prices ("Backwardation is the solution", Goldman …

Diversified Option Selling Portfolio That's interesting. I wonder whether WTI and Brent fundamentals detach again. Continue to be surprised how the trading community and media's focus seems to be on WTI and not Brent. Backwardation. That's the Goldman Sachs diagnosis for OPEC …