Dilemma:
Took a long position on the basis that those candle wicks might indicate an upmove to the daily pivot. We got there but I decided to leave it and see if we have another go at last week’s highs.
Was I rright or wrong not to have taken a profit at the Pivot?..time will tell, this is now (more or less) a set and forget trade with a stop below recent lows, its not a big position anyway…
Change of plan, I forgot that I am out this afternoon! - closed it on the Pivot afterall.
Just got back, and it appears that price did indeed reach - and exceed- last week’s high…and fell straight back down again!!!
I had forgotten that we were visiting a friend in hospital and it didn’t seem appropriate to be peeping at my mobile every 5 mins, so I closed out at that pivot level before we left…
The 5 min chart shows that there were no drops in the rise and was a rather pretty “Guppy” type chart progression. 
Only 26 pips but better than nothing 
The 1H 200SMA seems again to have been a popular point:
For many of us, the phrase “Made in China” has been extremely familiar for many, many years. But the connotations associated with it have changed considerably in that time from cheap, plastic throwaways, via cheap copies of consumer goods, to high technology and quality goods.
Now we see the “Made in China” label, for the first time in human history, landing on the dark side of moon. That is one amazing achievement!
But, closer to home, China was also in the news yesterday, bringing down oil prices with news of some of the worst manufacturing data for many years, with the Chinese PMI falling below 50% .
But on the same day we saw oil prices rising on the announcement from China that vice-ministerial level meetings with the US on the trade agreements will take place next week on 7-8 January. The fallout from the trade wars between the two largest economies on the globe are starting to show in company results such as Apple, falling stock values and reductions in agricultural sales.
If that was not enough input already, we have also seen OPEC announcing significant cuts in production from Saudi Arabia and others even before the new OPEC+ agreement officially started.
But we didn’t stop there either. Towards the end of the day, the API released its stock data which showed contradictory pressures, reporting a crude oil draw that exceeded expectations but a big build in gasoline stocks
Against a background of a US government shutdown sinking into a deadlock situation and further doubt about a settlement of the Brexit deal, it was not surprising to see such a topsy-turvy day in oil markets as we witnessed yesterday.
The market prices have, at least temporarily, found a base level at which noises are starting to emerge of US shale oil difficulties in making profits and therefore also in securing additional debt and investment funds to finance new developments - which casts a shadow over the optimistic forecasts for significant increased US production during 2019.
All this is not good for trading. It becomes harder to create a view, define targets, and generates so much uncertainty, as positions swing from gain to loss and back again, that as soon as 50 pips appears as profit, one is already wondering should I “take the money and run”. Then one’s focus turns from the chart structure to just eyeballing the current price as it zooms this way and that.
Yesterday, I took that one position with a small profit but closed it due to the overall uncertainty and not being present to monitor it. Later I took another long and closed that for 23 pips and then a short with a loss of -17 pips. I don’t like that kind of trading.
Towards the close, it seemed that the market was shrugging off any negative news and maybe focusing more on the potential good news from the upcoming US-China talks so I went long again and that position is still open. Currently it is around 50+ pips and, once again, that horrible uncertainty rises in one’s throat -should I take it now or wait? Do I take a smug profit here or end up choking back tears after it rallies immediately after I close it - or do I take a longer view and go for the “big pips” and end up kicking myself after it once again just collapses!
Hah! but that is the nature of trading!
I am thinking about raising my stop close to B/E, just below the last week high and a target at 48.00. A stop at 50 pips is a bit tight for my liking. but at least then I won’t end up with a loss as well as wishing I had taken the money!!!
Well…no sooner did I set my target level at 48.00 and the market obligingly spiked up and hit it - even with a little positive slippage to boot! Sometimes trades are so short and sweet…(but I guess I should have left it open even so! :D)
Hi Manxx, Happy new year! nice trade 
Keep us posted on any new trends please 
You feel a pullback to the 1hour 200SMA is back on track or is the OPEC cuts news likely to take this higher?
Happy and Successful New Year to you, too @Bleumagic 
I doubt if we will get back to that level (currently around 45.75 WTI) whilst we have a combination of US-China talks next week and the OPEC cuts coming into effect. But if those talks fail to produce anything concrete then I think we can easily see those lows again. The actual negative impact of these trade wars is starting to appear in concrete terms in company results and in cancelled investment plans, etc. So any signs of that crisis deepening further will be extremely negative on global economic forecasts! I mean, we are talking about the two largest economies in the world- and if they are fighting then the overspill reaches all corners of the globe - and falling global demand = falling oil prices.
That depends on what you define as a trend! 
I use the daily (with a glance at the weekly, too) to define my underlying trend and the hourly as my main working chart for entries and target/stop levels.
But trends have a start, middle and end and it is important to try and recognise these. If we look at the current daily chart, it is still in a downtrend, but recent price action, together with fundamentals concerning B/E costs for oil producers, suggests we have reached a plateau here after the autumn’s steep decline. But daily trends that have continued so long and so far (around 45% drop in price) rarely turn on a V-shape and rally back up. So I am thinking that we might see a rather prolonged period now of consolidative “W” formations looking more like"wwWWwwWww".
I think it is also worth remembering that we are in a rather unusual situation where the OPEC+ group is very reluctantly cutting back on their supplies to support prices. This means there is a lot of backed-up potential output that is just bulging behind the closed taps and just waiting for the prices to rise before being pumped out into the market. The need for oil revenues and to protect market shares will ensure that any country that can produce will produce as soon as the price is “right” - which, when combined with steadily increasing US output and new pipeline capacity, is tantamount to a cap on the market price.
So I don’t really see any fast major rally ahead at all this year - maybe a slower move up towards $55-60 if US/China and Brexit issues are resolved in a positive manner for economic growth and global prosperity.
Here’s how my daily chart looks at present going back to the start of this down move. We have not yet improved enough to declare the down move over - but enough to suggest we are at a consolidation stage. My first target in longer term trends would be to return above that weekly 200 SMA:
Thank you for the info. this sums up everything!
Your are awesome Really. Exited for the future. This will be interesting; good fortunes
I still consider myself a total Noobie in this commodity, but thanks…!
Oil prices, that were already more optimistic on the news of the US-China trade talks on Mon-Tues and the promising start of the OPEC+ cuts, received a fresh boost on Friday from the strong employment data from the US.
But although the price of WTI spiked up to touch $49 it didn’t stay there and fell back to end the week just above $48. This was indeed a positive close for the week.
However, since it is currently the state of the world’s economies that is driving oil prices, the future near-term direction will certainly be heavily influenced by the outcome of these 2-day talks. If the results are positive then we move into the $50-60 range - if they are neutral or negative then we slip back into the $40-50 range.
Whilst the short term, intraday picture was more positive towards the end of last week, the longer term picture only shows last week’s range as a pause at best in the drop since last Oct.
If we do hear some concrete comments out of next week’s US-China meeting, then I would anticipate a revisit to the weekly 200-period SMA which is currently sitting above the market at just above $52.
Whilst focusing on the US-China issue, there is one other interesting event that may or may not affect oil prices concerning walls:
Perhaps the most well-known feature in China is the Great Wall of China
Perhaps the most talked-about feature in the US is the Great Wall of Mr Trump
EIA vs. API: Comparing Crude Inventories data releases
The API and EIA both release data on a weekly basis concerning oil inventories and refinery activity in the US. These releases are closely watched by the industry and investors/traders. But there are often large variations/discrepancies between the data from these two organisation for the same weekly periods.
The article below by Michelle Toovey in Investopedia explains some of the reasons for this:
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is an industry group that represents American companies involved in producing, refining and distributing petroleum and petroleum products. Its Weekly Statistical Bulletin accountsfor more than 80% of total refinery production. The data collected by the API is submitted by companies on a voluntary basis, but according to the API, the average sample coverage of the API data is about 90%.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a government agency that publishes a Weekly Petroleum Status Report which provides information on the supply of oil and the level of inventories of crude oil and refined products. The EIA requires major oil companies to complete their oil inventory surveys, which include a stern disclosure for noncompliance or intentional wrongdoing, and there are civil and criminal penalties for failure to file accurate and timely data.
These disclosures requirements of the EIA give greater credibility to its data releases and therefore analysts and traders hold them in higher regard.
The API Weekly Statistical Bulletin is normally released on Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. ET. (unless Monday is a holiday).
The EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report is normally released on Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. ET. (unless Monday is a holiday)
We’ve seen some kind of attempt to raise prices today but we have not really managed to hold above last week’s high at all - at least not so far!
But I based my trades on the hope that we would see a good rise and I didn’t want to miss out on it - but ended up with some real rubbishy trading that I am really very disappointed with 
I took two long positions and saw both rise quickly to 80+ pips and on both occasions I decided to run them expecting a big push up - but on both occasions it didn’t happen and they both collapsed back to zero. I managed to scrape out with 6 pips on the first and 19 pips on the other!
Got thoroughly bored and retired for the day.
I guess my underlying premise for today was that a high level vice-ministerial trade meeting would not be taking place if the participants did not beforehand know that they had something to offer in it - but the markets don’t seem to be agreeing with me! 
Well we haven’t really crashed yet! So I’ve reset my long position here about 65 pips lower than where i closed it earlier. Still going for good news from the US-China talks…
If it dives instead of a rally then i lose about half my January profits so far 
…continued:
Edit: Market flat to slightly lower overnight. I don’t like it -the markets are not seeing anything to be positive about here where one would expect it to! Nothing has really changed overnight and price is more or less where it was, but I just feel that it should have changed if the market was optimistic - it is precisely that lack of optimistic sentiment that has me concerned about the upside here - so I’m out.
I will probably be kicking myself later, but I am not going to sit with this one with no TA justification and I do not relish spending another day watching the charts with a magnifying glass to spot the move, so closed out for a small loss of -16 pips.
But this thread is not about my trades it is about the market so I apologise for the boring input recently! 
Not boring at all. Like to hear about your/other traders sentiment on the market. Especially during these times where the price is not going anywhere…
Yesterday’s trading was an interesting example of the importance of money management in trading. It can make a greater difference to one’s overall results than just getting the direction right. It was also an important demonstration of the need for discipline and obedience when following a charting method!
My own rules are that I only hold positions for longer term when both the daily and hourly are in synch with each other. When they are not then I can trade in either direction but only looking for day-type trades because it is usually in this situation that the market oscillates back and forth for quite long periods.
But I ignored this rule in the conviction that a big move was imminent on the upside. If I had obeyed my rules I would have had 2 trades totally somewhere between 100-150 pips. But I decided to wait for more and ended up with only 25 pips between them!
Then I took another long position last night even though it was not yet justified on the 5 min chart. This led to a small loss this morning when the market was lower instead of higher -actually -18.8 pips and not -16 pips as mentioned in the above post - it obviously dropped a further few pips before the transaction was filled).
If I had waited for the proper signal instead of pre-empting it then it would have been a very different result:
The long signal only came this morning. I was watching the 1-hour 200SMA and had anticipated price crossing back over it but entered too early instead of waiting!!! It eventually crossed over this morning (green circle) and I took two separate positions, one to regain the overnight loss and another as a new position.
The first position I closed with +22 pips and thus restoring my balance.
The other position was going to be a longer term position but, yet again, the whole scenario felt so “soggy”, and without the slightest sign of enthusiasm even as the price slowly ground higher, that I closed that one as well!
This is a very frustrating market at the moment…but at least still on the winning side! 
Here’s how they went on the 5 min chart:
Which oil contracts do you trade and where? I see you are quite strong in fundamentals would you consider cooperation with me writing for blogs?
Looks like you took some solid trades there @anon46773462
I’ve taken a short punt, again, with the last ‘larger’ trade not hitting the mark. Scaled out at just outside of BE.
Glad to hear you managed to scale out of that position - well handled!
You are a brave man going short, although there is as much argument for a drop in prices as there is for a rise - and I really cannot understand what is holding it back! All the investment banks and OPEC etc are talking about $50-80 average for 2019 and yet we are struggling to even get out of the $40-50 range!
Once again, I am wary of a market that has every reason to go up and yet doesn’t!
I took yet another long trade and just close it again. Hard work “for a few dollars more” as Sergio Leone might say, but then what is wrong with hard work! I am beginning to feel a bit trigger -happy myself with all this!
5-min chart:
I know, I know - I think it’s down to self belief haha - could be a pricy lesson, not the first time!
