Maybe not! 
The US market managed a sharp spike to the upside just prior to its close (red circle) and that put paid to any thoughts of going short overnight.
And there was an early morning signal to go long (green circle) and so I have bought the BB method looking for 150 pips on the upside. I don’t generally like early morning trades as sentiment can change remarkably during the London session and I am not overly hopeful about this one- but let’s see how it goes.
Yesterday, John Bolton either got the sack from My Trump - or resigned - depending on whose view one gives greatest credibility to.
Personally, I think this is probably quite bullish news. We have an election on the horizon in the US and Mr Trump has set a lot of fires burning under a lot of cooking pots over the last three years but has not produced any decent meals from them yet:
Mexican wall, Venezuelan power change, Iranian power change, China trade war, North Korean denuclearisation, Afghanistan troop withdrawals, peace talks with the Taleban…
Seems a lot of the blame may be thrown at Mr Bolton for a lot of these prolonged battles, which, if not seen to be progressing soon, will provide the opposition with a lot of mud to throw as the electioneering gets going.
So I am beginning to anticipate some reconciliatory actions from Mr Trump in the near term and hopefully will result in some optimism in the stock markets and some first aid to the ailing economies around the world.
Well, I got up early here at the cabin and shared these thoughts with my “neighbour” who told me what he thought of it all:
–before gliding serenely off for breakfast in the morning mist with his family…
1 Like
Well, well, well! So Boris Johnson’s suspension of the UK Parliament is now found to be unlawful, according to Scotland’s highest civil court.
“It was to be inferred that the principal reasons for the prorogation were to prevent or impede Parliament holding the executive to account and legislating with regard to Brexit, and to allow the executive to pursue a policy of a no-deal Brexit without further Parliamentary interference.”
"The UK government had failed to show a valid reason for the prorogation…The circumstances, particularly the length of the prorogation, showed that the purpose was to prevent such scrutiny. "
“The only inference that could be drawn was that the UK government and the prime minister wished to restrict Parliament.”
Is there anyone or their dog that didn’t already know this, one could ponder!
So at least the courts have not caught the modern disease of “democratic dictatorship” so rampant amongst politics today. But now to see what the Supreme Court says next week about it! 
2 Likes
Well it took its time and bit of a bumpy ride, but at no time during the day was there a serious challenge to the MA bands. Another win for the BB method! 
1 Like
Last night saw some “ground bait” thrown on the waters of the US-China trade dispute by both the Chinese and the US. Only tit-bits but enough to attract the big fish and build up an expectation and appetite for bigger things to come.
China removed a few US products from its list of tariffs, whilst the US postponed the date of implementing additional tariffs from 1.10 to 15.10. These offerings ahead of the new serious talks due to commence in October.
The SP500 nibbled well and has nearly reached the record highs of 3026 set in July this year.
Is this the first sign of a new "reconciliatory US President"? who "got things done"?
This continuation was reflected in the hourly charts that already turned bullish at the start of this week:
MA bands clearly separated and even expanding…good signs of a follow-through.
From an investment point of view - not a BP trader environment at all(!), it is interesting to look at this same MA set-up on a monthly basis - this current up-move started in the US almost 10 years back - and has continued with hardly a ripple of serious challenge ever since!
But one has to smile just a little! 
Yesterday Mr Trump says about the Chinese:
“I deal with them and I know them and I like them”
Does this mean then that all the US companies that MrTrump recently "ordered" to leave China and set up elsewhere, can now shift all their factories back to China? (at least for the next month, anyway?)
And so the upside continues today with the US SP500 index - but not without some drama on the day.
The Far East took it up to its highs close to 3020, but still fell short of the record highs from the summer.
From there, it was taken back during the day to the psychosupport at 3000 before climbing again.
A difficult day to judge which way to go but I bought it anyway on a close back above the MA bands. But the very next hourly candle happened to be such a real see-saw that I closed it for a mere +33 pips rather than risk a loss.
I would/could have gained more by waiting but I think this is a good example of applying commonsense override to a TA set-up. It is always good to remember that there is always another trade around the corner. If a trade is opened and subsequently does not perform as anticipated, then it is worth considering whether to dump and wait. In this case there were clear signs of possible weakness on the day and the trade was currently in profit - so I took it and wait for the next set-up - why complicate things or take unnecessary risk!
It is fascinating how one’s concepts about, and attitude towards, an issue can change so rapidly simply because a different perspective is applied to it.
Like everyone else, I am used to seeing food products for sale at reduced prices in supermarkets as they approach their “sell by” dates, but I rarely buy them simply because I prefer to always buy fresh goods, and I even always check the dates to ensure I get the freshest available.
But now one of our major supermarket chains is starting a campaign to reduce its food waste as a move towards helping environmental issues. It is packaging various product groups into parcels as they approach their end-dates and selling them for heavily reduced prices in order to avoid eventually throwing them away.
And as a result, instead of walking past these packages as just “bargains for the poor” they have now taken on a conscience-pricking role that creates a guilt feeling about what is in your shopping trolley as you pass them by!
I like the concept and will willingly participate in it. And, hey, it saves a little money, too! 
1 Like
Can this really be true???
From BBC news:
An 18-carat SOLID GOLD TOILET has been stolen in a burglary overnight at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.
According to police, a gang broke into the Oxfordshire palace at about 04:50 BST and stole the artwork,
This toilet is apparently a fully a working WC made from 18-carat solid gold and fully plumbed into the building! It even has a name - it is entitled “America”! 
The toilet was actually offered to Donald Trump in 2017 when he had asked the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where the toilet has been since its creation in 2016, for an 1888 Van Gogh painting. But the Guggenheim rejected the loan request by the White House and offered this masterpiece instead!
It was part of an exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan that opened on Thursday and visitors to the exhibition were free to use the palace’s throne for its intended purpose, with a three-minute time limit to avoid queues. 
Unless, of course, it is already April 1st again?
1 Like
I have come across this well-known expression already twice during this last week - I think it is something very appropriate for life in general and for social media in particular - so I put it here too - just something to ponder on.
3 Likes
As expected, the major drone attack on Saudi Arabian oil processing facilities created a significant jump in oil prices when markets opened this morning. The attack has cut SA’s daily output by some 50% which represents a huge 5% of global total daily demand.
Stock prices were also depressed as a result of this attack as well as from data released showing China’s industrial production growth dropping to its weakest pace in 171/2 years in August.
It is worth remembering that the attack in SA does not affect oil extraction, it is the daily supply that is affected. This is important since supply can, in the short term, be maintained at appropriate levels by drawing on the ample market inventories around the globe as well as drawing on the official Strategic Reserves than most countries hold to cover precisely these kinds of events. President Trump has already authorised the use of the US strategic reserves to maintain supply levels. But the effectiveness of using inventories is directly related to the extent of damage to the SA infrastructure and how long it will take to repair and reinstate supplies.
In addition, there are many countries, such as the other OPEC nations and Russia, that are able to increase production levels very quickly if needed.
One strange feature of this attack is the claim by SA that no one was killed in the event. This is really strange in such a huge facility (the largest in the world) where there must surely be at least maintenance and monitoring personnel at all times - this suggests to me that there was actually a warning prior to the strike giving time for an evacuation - that in itself must surely evidence where the attack came from?
However, the key issues here reflect the concerns about what happens next. This cannot be viewed as a single, isolated event. It has increased tensions and demonstrated that such attacks can be, and are being, escalated into international major impacts that affect markets on a large scale. This is clearly the intention of the perpetrators of this particular attack.
So the major questions now are:
- how will the US and other major countries react/retaliate
- how long will it take to restore SA supply
- how vulnerable is the Middle East to further attacks/disruptions
There is little doubt that oil prices will remain higher for some time but whether shortages are sustained enough to cause further increases remains to be seen.
The SP100 shows the drop since Friday (which had actually already turned neutral/negative before the close on Friday).
In addition to all this, this week is also a major week in the UK Brexit saga with Boris Johnson’s meetings in the EU, the court hearings regarding the lawfulness of the UK parliament prorogation and the release of important UK economic data. There are also a number of Central Bank interest rate decisions.
But maybe the most immediate focus is on possible identification of those behind the SA attack and the response/retaliation from the US.
SP500 1-hour
2 Likes
Thank you for your analysis @anon46773462 - Yes the apparent lack of casualties, whilst something to be thankful for does seem quite odd.
As an aside, knowing your interest in these matters, everything seems to have gone very silent about the British Ship taken ‘hostage’ in the area and the Iranian ship which that event was seemingly in retaliation for.
Have I missed some news event about this issue - or is the status quo unchanged as far as you know ?
I live a few kilometers of a big refinery (2nd biggest in germany) and have friends working there. Ive also been on site several times. It is not unusual that you see for several hundret meter no personel but only a huge amount of pipes. These refineries are vastly automatisized and use a minimum of employees and those employees are concentrated around the main facilities, while in the very big back areas loaded with the pipes nobody is at site unless something happens (which is a rare ocasion). So that nobody got injured is not very suspicious considering that a larger sized refinery needs only 200+/- people on site to operate on full capacity i doubt that the world bigest one need more than 300-350 on site.
Also out of security reasons, the buildings in which the employees concentrate and spend the most time in, are build like bunkers to withstand possible fires and explosions.
Around the storage facilities there is absolutely nobody at day time, take aside at night time. As said, those areas are only staffed if something needs to be fixed, such fixes (rarely needed) do usually take place at day time.
Here are 2 pics, a rihad aramco refinery and its employee parking space.
As you can see the parking is made for a capacity of 100-150 cars maximum at same time.
The brittish ship has been released by iran, the iranian ship has been released by UK -it was a deal- but only a hour later the US has arrested it again. So the news of iran and USA arguing is nothing out of the ordinary and of no interest for newspapers in europe.
That the iranian ship has beenbrealeased as a part of a deal is nothingbthe british government wants the public to know all about so it has just been silenced in the medias in the UK. Elsewhere it wasnt silenced.
Hi @Falstaff
The Iranian oil tanker, Grace 1 was originally impounded by the British in Gibraltar for potentially breaking EU sanctions against delivering oil supplies to Syria. It was subsequently released on assurances from Iran that the oil was not bound for Syria. However, upon its release the Iranians changed the tanker’s name to Adrian Darya and the US issued a court order for impounding it on other grounds, i.e. breaching US sanctions against (anyone) buying oil from Iran.
But the tanker was not impounded and the last I heard it was seen close to the Syrian coastline, possibly getting ready to off-load its oil, and possibly via ship-to-ship transfer!!
As far as I know the Swedish ship Stena Impero, which is registered in the UK is still impounded by Iran but some of the crew have been released. I hadn’t heard any news that the ship itself had yet been release.
1 Like
Yes that is certainly so on these highly automated sites, but then it is still at least a very lucky situation that absolutely no one was there at the time - especially even security people considering the recent tensions in that entire area and the major significance of this particular facility.
Let us put it down to good fortune and hope there are no people trapped, but alive, in bankers under that fire which is under control - but not yet extinguished!!!
Thanks for the pics above - interesting!
1 Like
Also, @Falstaff and @MrDE good to see you both here on this thread, it is a kind of lonely place to be - so thanks for the visit! 
1 Like
I pop in fairly frequently - but wasn’t quite sure whether you prefer comments or not. Good thread 
You are always welcome here. The very idea of this thread being in the “lobby” is that it can freely include anything by anyone!.
And the title is to suggest that most things are only partially known or assumed or understood - and therefore worthy of discussion 
But it naturally trends towards trading issues for obvious reasons!..
2 Likes
Didn’t really dare get involved with my staples, oil and SP500, today for fear of stops being hit in volatile moves.
But I certainly wanted to get involved in something and, inspired by @Alphahavoc, took a short position on EURAUD.
It looked likely to drop further since the likelihood of anything positive at this stage from a first meeting between Boris Johnson and Jean-Claude Juncker was slightly less than zero percent!! And there was that daily 200SMA below just begging to be broken…
So there we are - no much, but something in the bank from a freaky Monday!
PS, Did Juncker really serve the British snails for lunch??? Was that a some kind of a “statement”???
1 Like