Market Internals for Oil

[notouch]

They're related markets but definitely not internals.

[The Bear]

	Quote:	cooter
	Could be. But I'm curious, Bear. Unless you have access to a Bloomberg, Reuters or Dow Jones terminal, you are at the mercy of news and rumours. How do you trade technically, unless your assumption is that the fundamentals are already "baked in" to the price? I'd think that one outlying, Six Sigma event and you're done. Thoughts?

Honestly though Cooter, I trade oil every day, and even if I had those news terminals, there's no way I could react quickly enough to read the data then trade on that news, or even have it reflect my trading actions. I'm sure you already know, but trading CL is mostly a bloodbath...it moves very fast, and spikes during the day....it's mostly whipsaw. Your right though, a big event could hurt me, but for now I can handle it - i'm not married and I have no children, but you are technically correct...I could blow up...but so can any speculator trading CL or any highly leveraged commodity for that matter.

So to answer your question, I use very little fundamental analysis....because personally I think by the time the news comes out...the spike has already happened at the exchange. It's OLD NEWS already.

Walter, I can't get the chart for CL because it's on my trading system not my net surfing system. The symbol is CL. If you can't get CL you maybe can get QM the mini contract, OR if you want you can see oil by looking at USO (United States Oil Fund) AMEX. You probably could get daily data on it from USO. USO is a good market for doing overnight trading on oil...and you can share size too.

[nasdaq5048]

	Quote:	notouch
	They're related markets but definitely not internals.

Crude oil is useless unless you dont turn it into products. Most of trades on crude oil are spreads. That's what the exxon's of the world care. Not the price of crude.

Maybe they are not market internals, but it is a industry internals. These spreads and oil prices are affecting each others, just like the S&P uptick because the NYSE tick is moving up. If crack spread move up, dont you think refiners would want to buy crude and run it thru the refineries?

[cooter]

Hey Bear,
Just curious as to why you trade the big CL contract, versus the QM mini? What is the margin on these?

How many ticks are you looking to net - scalping or daytrading. Or do you hold out for longer, swing or position trading?

[notouch]

CL is better if you can afford it. The volume is higher and the costs lower but the margin is about double.

[The Bear]

Hi cooter

I prefer the regular size contracts rather than the mini ones. I like the larger risk and the larger potential gain, that happens within seconds. I did trade the QM contract last year a bit, but I found I got some slippage at times intraday...1 tick at the most. The CL contract is the main market and that's where I feel at home for some reason. QM is great for situations where you want to scale down your risk though, and it's perfectly fine for slightly larger time frames.

Margin on the CL is around 2000.00 per contract intraday and around 4000.00 per contract pre/post market. Margin may be even lower on ICE, I'm not sure.

I trade in different time frames...like the 5-min, 15-min for example....but I go for different targets...usually 30 ticks....sometimes less, sometimes more.

I'm not much of a swing trader or position trader (not very good at it), but I'm slowly getting into it again. 2 years ago I was swing trading quite a bit. I'm trying to swing trade MRO (Marathon Oil), and picked up some a few days ago.

[cooter]

Bear,

Horses for courses, as they say What about the other energies - Nat Gas, RBOB Unleaded, Heating Oil, even Ethanol (which is classified under grains by some)?

Also, one of my brokers just offered me well under $2000 margins on the energy contracts - guess I'll have to check my paperwork and make sure I've got this rate in writing

If you're trading size here, you might want to drop me a PM and I'll fill you in with details.

[The Bear]

	Quote:	cooter
	Bear, Horses for courses, as they say What about the other energies - Nat Gas, RBOB Unleaded, Heating Oil, even Ethanol (which is classified under grains by some)? Also, one of my brokers just offered me well under $2000 margins on the energy contracts - guess I'll have to check my paperwork and make sure I've got this rate in writing If you're trading size here, you might want to drop me a PM and I'll fill you in with details.

Yo cooter, can you help me out and tell me if there are any forums on the net where oil traders...or any energy for that matter post messages? I trade Natural Gas (Symbol: NG) (Henry Hub) quite often. I used to trade it more than oil but it's been very erratic lately, mostly un-tradable for me. I wish I followed the RBOB market, this is where the action is, but at this point im a bit scared to just take a flyer.

Have you ever traded the NG market cooter?

Thanks for the offer bud, but do send me a PM once you are setup with your new rates and trading Oil or Gas. Or let me know if you trade the RBOB what it's like.

[cooter]

Dunno where the energy traders hang out - try googling it, you might find a forum or two for fellow gas or oil traders.

Can't say I've traded any of the energies yet - I think the grains suit my overall risk/reward ratio better.

(Still trading the high-risk 30yr bonds though - took 9 ticks last Friday when the report came out. At $31.25/tick, it was a Good Friday, indeed.)

[The Bear]

Grains are heavy duty...there's some big action there. What are your thoughts on Soybeans? Pullback or beginning of possible downtrend.