Commodities Countdown

Coal And Steel Rocket Higher - Recording 2018-01-11

Greg Schnell

Greg Schnell

Chief Technical Analyst, Osprey Strategic

  • Steel and Coal rocket higher
  • Gasoline and Heating Oil continue higher
  • Brent works toward $70, $WTIC works toward $65
  • Natural Gas has a record withdrawal, sudden surge
  • The currencies are critical to watch here

In what was a huge week for Steel stocks and coal stocks, this was almost vertical. 


Gasoline and Heating Oil confirmed the move in oil.

Brent hits $70, $WTIC works toward $65.

West Texas on its try for $65.

But the currency story is the compelling story of the week. Especially the Japanese Yen.

This weekly chart sets the big 6-year stage for $JPYUSD. The 65-week moving average has been frictional resistance for the entire year. Now it looks ready to break out topside if you look in the zoom box. It has broken above the 65 Week MA. There were only two closes above the 65 Week MA in 2017, and both reversed the following week. This is a Thursday close on a weekly chart, so we need Friday's close to finish the bar. Stay tuned next week. The MACD is just turning up with lots of room to run to the upside. The histogram just went positive this week in the zoom box. With the big bar this week, the Yen is on track to have the highest weekly close in three months after being range bound. That makes watching the Yen next week critical to see if we get a reversal or continuation.

Below is the daily chart. Couldn't be more interesting! The 89 and 95 levels have a thin black dotted line. These represent important levels for the Yen going back 20 years.... Incredibly important levels. So to see the Yen spend a year trapped within a few pennies of that level and now break out two weeks into the new year would be very significant. I recognize it was higher last spring. But the down trend of 16 months on the chart below, combined with the 6-year down trend from the chart above makes this junction incredibly important for technicians. 

I spent a great deal of time explaining the currency setup on all of the major USD crosses on the video.

For that and a lot more in an action packed Commodities Countdown Recording 2018-01-11, this year is just getting started with incredible moves. The video is full of exciting setups.

Commodities Countdown With Greg Schnell 2018-01-11 from StockCharts.com on Vimeo.

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