Been a while since my last post, several reasons for this, at personal level I been having some serious health issues and at a more professional level been busy and studying the markets and finance as whole quite a bit lately.
The Oil Trader
Online trading, economic views
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Where are we at the moment and where we are heading to?
Been a while since my last post, several reasons for this, at personal level I been having some serious health issues and at a more professional level been busy and studying the markets and finance as whole quite a bit lately.
The chart represents the three big engines of the world economy, the US,China & Germany and all are in a declining rate of change, even after further stimulus efforts made by the 3 central bans, The fed, the PBOC and the ECB, so in my opinion the action taken for example by PBOC in cutting RRR and the rate on deposits / Loans for 1 year maturity has not been extreme enough to "provoke" consumers & business to increase internal demand, please see the link bellow, another big problem is facing is the fact that the world economies are decreasing their demand for Chinese products, being the export markets one of their biggest GDP contributor is causing a serious headache to Chinese policy makers, plus the fact that their plans to offset this loss of external demand, by increasing their internal demand is not working as fast as they wanted, all this becoming one the main issues for Chinese monetary and economic policy, this kind of problems in the Chinese economy will translate to less raw commodities demand, as for example oil and copper, therefore I am bearish in those commodities and commodities in general, even after the problems caused by the Iran embargo by the EU is already in at work, the problems with Nordic countries disputes between Governments and unions of oil workers, which led to same loss of output. The problems at present with high price in corn, soy beans which may lead to a spill over to other food commodities/products, I believe are temporary and the recent spike in prices will abate, and I could go on with examples.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Too much will look bad, too little will look dangerous, so what is the right amount?
LTRO day ,finally after a couple of months of speculation on the amounts that banks would take in the 2nd round of quantitative easing by the back door from the ECB, we finally know the exact amount...€530B which was better then some extreme estimation's that were predicting that banks would take close to a €1Trillion!
There are two points here which are important to take out from this latest take from the banks, firstly is the fact that the first feared stigma related to the banks taking money from this tenders and that would be a sign of weakness, is completely out of the window, actually it seem that the opposite is true, secondly the fact that banks encounter themselves in a bit of a paradox in terms of the amount they should bid for, this because too little would signal a lost opportunity in enhanced earnings,even if small, through the use of the funds in possible carry trades and of course the refinancing needs at a very cheap rate, but on the other hand, if they take too much, markets can see it a sign of weakness, so I believe this latest round was at the just right amounts, where markets will feel comfortable with +€1 Trillion injected by the ECB since December 2011 and the banks will have excess liquidity to put to work or through the Sarcozy trade, where they buy investment grade governments bonds as the case of Italy and Spain which still yield over 5% and make a profit in the spread, once they borrowed it at 1%, giving a helping hand to the European governments to fund their deficits at cheaper rates, plus the spill over probably will go to chase riskier assets, giving a lift and feel good to the markets.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Is it 2008 all over again!?!
I am writing and the Us markets yet to close are in a complete meltdown, this time not because of their own banks but because of the mess in Europe sovereign debt and the poor financial positions Europeans banks are in, due to the exposure on the debt they have to countries as the likes of the PIIGS countries!
Also not helping is the lack of coordinated actions by the major central banks around the world, which finally last week made a coordinated intervention because of the long due shortness of US $ and the lack of access from some Europeans banks had to fund their US $ needs, so they announced a new start of swap line between the major CB and the FED.
Yesterday also the FED spooked the markets, with their lacklustre operation "twist" , which in the end is just a maturity transformation exercise and didn't announced any mew stimulus measures, which the market, ahead of it self had priced in, so once it was confirmed nothing more new was coming from the FED, the only rational reaction would be to correct expectations...
At this precise moments the SPX is trading at the major support and the 50% fibo retracement from the 2009 lows at 1120 if we closed below this level I believe is a cascade down to the next support which is at 1050!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Are we in recession??!!
Are we in a recession already?
According to the latest data it seems or we are already or very close, at least in the US, and if the US economy is in recession and still being the biggest in terms of nominal $ in the world, probably the world economy will follow suit, even as the EM economies are forecast to keep growing at healthy levels, but not enough to off set the weak US and European economic present state.
Let's look at this great chart (courtesy of John Mauldin and street talk advisor's):
Friday, August 5, 2011
What a day...what a week!!
Monday, July 6, 2009
The oil trader
It seems my calls for oil to fall, or that was a suckers rally were right...finally it seems the fundamentals are just catching up.
The market is full of oil and the correspondent derivate products, so is not a surprise we are starting to see a major correction in the price of the barrel, I attribute the last rally to speculation by retail and some institutional investing, nevertheless if we don't see massive buying coming back through for example the way of ETF buying I believe we will see oil back to the low $50's...Posted by theoiltrader at 03:27 0 comments
Monday, 29 June 2009
Oil shooting up...again!
It seems the bulls have the upper hand again, the reason this time being one more attack in one of shell pipeline in nigeria.
To me they are starting to running out of reasons to push the prices up, not just because demand still did not pick up, plus the fact of global trade, even is showing signs of stabilising, is still colapsed.
In my humble opinion the latest "green shoots" have been no more then a re-stocking of inventories which logically would manifest it self by a increase on demand for commodities , including oil. Now the problem is where is the demand for this new stock?
That is the next factor which will determine if we have legs for the next push up .Posted by theoiltrader at 12:04 0 comments
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Dilemma!
I am finding my self in a big dilemma...should i try to change university or keep my self on the same university until the end of the course?
This doubts started surging after a meeting with my personal tutor, which by the way an excellent teacher and also my teacher, this because I "showed" some doubts related to the commitment of not just some of my fellow students but also of some of the teachers. I know it is not their fault I am a mature student, with some more knowledge in the area of financial markets and trading then my colleagues, but in terms of commitment maybe my experience and the fact of not wanting to waste more time are big contributors factors for my feeling of sometimes I am not learning what I think I should!
Put this together with the factor of my university is not on the top of the "stupid" tables, and bang! My doubts and fears all in enhanced level, in terms of the prospects I have as a graduate trying to go to jobs markets , which I hope will be a buoyant one by the time I graduate.
I do honestly believe it doesn't matter which university you came from, what it matters is the commitment of the student , which will be reflected on his final grades, but it seems the potential employers do not see it this way, the old cliche of where did you study is still very much alive, not that I put in question the quality of the teaching on those institutions will be many times betters, but that does not invalidate the good work other universities are doing, again the commitment of the student it can make up for the difference.
I also believe a university reputation is made by their fellow graduates, so, in principle a university can climb those "classification tables" and through the years improve there stats, but here is where the factor student commitment have more weight, and my problem and my "fears" reside actually there, because at the present moment in terms of colleagues commitment and knowledge or the thirst for it is very questionable, and makes all those doubts and fears I have been feeling become bigger, making me make the terrible question , should I look to another university to finish my course?
But please don't take my present university for all is bad, because it isn't , we actually have excellent research and study venues, excellent list of up to date resources like the library and computer labs, etc...but the doubts are still there!
What should I do? I realise this must be a very personal decision and that there is nobody out there with a magic answer...so we will see.Posted by theoiltrader at 08:19 3 comments
Labels: best universities, education, university
Bear market rally?
There we are at a crossroads point. There is been a massive rally on the last four weeks, based on a view of potential "green shots" on the economy. I do honestly think is noting more than a massive bear rally, which by the way is healthy to happen, more all has been based in false hopes, I'll explain, when I say false hopes not that the numbers are lying, they are just being put in a contest where the expectation been too low so a stabilisation of the deterioration of the economy is seen as more positive than actually is, at least in my view, and once investors start again come back to earth and admit they actually were putting themselves ahead of the possible recovery, which is still far by the way, they will start selling again or at least taking profits!
I do believe is still didn't saw the lows for this bear market, because if you look to it in terms of valuations and compared the numbers to other recession, at least the ones as deep as we saw until now one this last recession we are still living, you soon realise the valuations at the moment are still to much high, to the point where we can say we saw a bottom, we still didn't saw pure capitulation even on the 6Th of march wasn't still capitulation.
We just need to look at volume, this rally has been based in low volume, characteristic of trap bear market rally !
I am looking maybe we still see a bit more advances , maybe to the 874 level on the s&p but if we get there the bears will come back on masses, giving us the potential for a massive sell off !Posted by theoiltrader at 07:27 0 comments
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
just close my short
just close my short position on ES ...coming from the 870 level was not bad at all... I do believe we will have a small rally for the next day or two !!!
Posted by theoiltrader at 02:35 0 comments
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
The scene is set ...2.2 millions barrels cut with regards from OPEC and another 600.000 thoushand from the russians, now the games will start!!
Lets wait in see who actually manage to stick to the supposed cuts and who will cheat as soon as ... it's a waiting and numbers game !
Even like that the market went down after a bearish but not so bearish E.d report today , which showed a bigger then expected build in distillates and a good increase in stocks in olkaoma!!
I am bearish and will be until the foreseen future, or until see some compliance in the cuts or some good improvement in demand numbers!Posted by theoiltrader at 13:04 0 comments
Friday, 12 December 2008
contango in oil markets still to continue if the economic situation at all levels not just in terms of credit freeze don't improve, enormous premiuns o the contango will be kept, and the big oil companies and the oil traders will keep making millions until they run out of space or the oil prices start climbing with a vengeance at front of the curve.
Posted by theoiltrader at 09:07 0 comments
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