Commodities Countdown

West Texas Crude Stops Bubbling - Webinar Skim 2016-12-22

Greg Schnell

Greg Schnell

Chief Technical Analyst, Osprey Strategic

Crude Oil ($WTIC) has been building an inside bar this week. After a big week last week, Oil traded in a much tighter range on the back of low volume associated with the holiday season.

 


Natural Gas ($NATGAS) was just the opposite. It had an outside week, making a lower low but closing above last weeks high and near the highs of the week.

$GOLD had a small change in the price action. Watch closely as this was the first week in 7 weeks that $GOLD did not make a lower low.

$SILVER couldn't find support at a major horizontal level of $16.20.

The $USD has been absolutely flat since the day after the Fed meeting. There is some softening in the upside momentum for the $USD. The MACD is making a lower high and the RSI didn't get as overbought. 

However, that might be too short sighted. Looking at the $USD run in 2014, there was lots of room to run. I switched out the MACD for the PPO, the Percentage Price Oscillator. The PPO is at a pretty high level. While that does not make it a sell, it does suggest watching price action closely. In 2014, it spent almost 7 months above 0.5%. Current we have only been above that level for 3 months.

I would like to point out one important point on the bond chart for the 7-10 year bond ETF, the IEF. The last 3 years has shown a huge surge in bond prices right around the new year. Just a heads up as every trend follower from Florida to Alaska is expecting the current direction to continue unabated. While we can't say a reversal will happen, there are a few other signs suggesting now is as good a time to look as ever.

Here is the TLT on a 1-Hour chart. While this is no guarantee of a trend change, this is the first time in 3-months that the TLT spent all day above the 100 Period MA. That 100-period MA has been resistance since early October. Seeing the strong spikes on the chart above to start the last three years, suggests having an eye looking for a reversal could help kick off some profitability early in the new year.  A push in price above the 119 level would be a good level for short term traders. The PMO is right at the level it usually rolls over at and the RSI has not breached 60. Breaching both of those next week might suggest a change in trend. Stay tuned.

Here is a link to the Commodities Countdown Webinar 2016-12-23. The feedback I received from the post-webinar survey was that it was jam packed with good ideas. It's exactly an hour long.

Commodities Countdown LIVE! with Greg Schnell - 2016-12-22 17:00 from StockCharts.com on Vimeo.

With that, I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas! I'll be doing webinars on both Tuesday and Thursday next week. Here is webinar schedule for the last week of 2016.

Good trading,
Greg Schnell, CMT, MFTA.

 
Greg Schnell
About the author: , CMT, MFTA is Chief Technical Analyst at Osprey Strategic specializing in intermarket and commodities analysis. He is also the co-author of Stock Charts For Dummies (Wiley, 2018). Based in Calgary, Greg is a board member of the Canadian Society of Technical Analysts (CSTA) and the chairman of the CSTA Calgary chapter. He is an active member of both the CMT Association and the International Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA). Learn More