By FX Empire.com
Rule:Crude Oil is considered the king of the commodities markets.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserveis the United States’ emergency oil stockpile, and it is the largest emergency petroleum supply in the world. The reserve stores about 570 million barrels of crude oil in underground salt caverns at four sites along the Gulf of Mexico. Any dipping into this reserve is going to be big news.
Brent Crude is traded in London as something called Futures contracts, which are priced in US Dollars. Now, all you traders brave enough to run your positions over a period of days or weeks, pay attention here:
Oil spread bets are monthly contracts. This means that:
a) You don’t pay any rollover charges; the bet will run until the contract ends;
b) Now, get this, the spread bet runs out (contract expires) in the middle of the month before the month it says on the tin. So, for example, the Brent Crude August contract runs out (expires) on 14th July. How dumb is that?
What to watch when trading
trading oil involves keeping an eye on a few different factors to the standard investment stuff. In addition to the run of the mill economic data that will gives clues as to whether the world’s factories are burning more or less oil there’re a couple of seasonal factors:
First, courtesy of Top Gear, there’s the US Driving Season
Now switch over to the weather forecast to see how windy it is. The US Hurricane Season officially runs from 1st June to 30th November, but don’t expect the forces of nature to pay too much attention to the dates. Hurricanes tend to hit the Gulf of Mexico, which is filled to the rafters with oilrigs (over 20 rigs went missing due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005).
Notice the seasonal rise in the oil price during the hurricane season.
And finally the most specific economic data to focus on are the US weekly oil and gas inventory figures, issued by the Energy Information Administration and released every week on Wednesday afternoons. If you trade oil you can’t afford to miss these.
Oil Trading Strategies
the choice here is between trading your views and using technical analysis keep in mind you’ll be up against specialists who might have the inside track on something.
Historical:
High: 114.57
Low: 76.84
Crude Oil Weekly Fundamental Analysis March 12-16, 2012, Forecast
Analysis and Recommendation:
Crude Oil ended higher Friday, with another weekly gain as better-than-expected data on U.S. employment in February lifted prospects for oil demand.
Traders also watched developments in the Middle East following an Israeli air strike on Gaza, and digested inflation data from China that indicated the country may take measures to stimulate its economy. The Israeli Premier was in the US last week meeting with the President and his military and political administration. Iraq begin using its new floating terminal this week and should be able to add 150,000 barrels per day in production. Technically there is no reason for crude to be trading this high.
OPEC this week said they were revising production levels as they see a drop in oil demand.
Oil was up by 82 cents, or 0.8%, to end at $107.40 a barrel which was oil’s third session of gains.
Prices advanced 0.7% on the week. Futures have risen in four of the past five weeks.
Economic Events: (GMT)
WEEKLY
- This Week in Petroleum
Release Schedule: Wednesday @ 1:00 p.m. EST (schedule) - Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
Release Schedule: Monday between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. EST (schedule) - Weekly Petroleum Status Report
Release Schedule: The wpsrsummary.pdf, overview.pdf, and Tables 1-14 in CSV and XLS formats, are released to the Web site after 10:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) on Wednesday. All other PDF and HTML files are released to the Web site after 1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Wednesday. Appendix D is produced during the winter heating season, which extends from October through March of each year. For some weeks which include holidays, releases are delayed by one day. (schedule) - Heating Oil & Propane Update (October-March)
Heating Oil, Propane Residential and Wholesale Price Data
Release Schedule: Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. EST - Weekly Coal Production
Release Schedule: Thursday by 5:00 p.m. EST - Weekly NYMEX Coal Futures
Release Schedule: Monday by 5:00 p.m. EST - Coal News & Markets
Release Schedule: Monday by 5:00 p.m. EST - Natural Gas Weekly Update
Release Schedule: Thursday between 2:00 and 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) - Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report
Release Schedule: Thursday at 10:30 (Eastern Time) (schedule)
Originally posted here
