MichelGJulien

I wish I'd have more time to detail why physical demand for gold is at record high (central banks buying, china, india, comex gold supplies declining at alarming pace, etc..) but it is so well documented on websites like zerohedge, sprott, jim sinclair that I didn't think it was necessary to expand more on the subject.

Hi guys, IMHO gold has already bottomed when it dipped sub $1200. It doesn't mean that it won't try to retest that area in a few weeks, but the physical demand is too strong now for gold to stay down for any extended period of time. It's really a buy-the-dip thing from now on imo. Michel

A lot of traders are aware that one factor behind the oil price fluctuations are the seasonal changes, which act as an important underlying influence in the supply/demand balance. It is widely believed that crude oil prices tend to be stronger in the fourth quarter when there is a high demand both by cold weather and by stock building. And also, that it gets weaker in the late winter as global demand falls with the onset of warm weather. Of course, crude oil prices are subject to a host of other influences. The high demand season, that is, late spring for gasoline and late autumn for heating oil, results in high prices of oil. But, is any of this "reliable" enough to adopt as a trading strategy? CXO Advisory worked on this subject last year and found out that: 1) oil price tends to rise with some consistency during January, April, May and August; 2) oil price tends to fall with some consistency during November and December. But after a few other simple tests, they concluded that evidence supports PERHAPS some belief that crude oil tends to have strong and weak months of the year, but that the high year-to-year volatility by month inhibits exploitation of these evidences in terms of trading strategy. There you have it from the experts. But, if we only look at the crude oil FUTURES market (something CXO Advisory didn't limit itself to), we come up with the following chart: On this graph we can clearly see that from July to September there are indeed seasonal factors at play that make oil prices go up. So, who to believe? Is this evidence solid enough to justify buying in July and holding that position until September comes around? I'd say yes, but only if you are able to stomach oil price wild gyrations and volatility. In short, it is not a strategy for everybody. More articles on my blog

Hi! My name is Michel Julien and I have been a relatively regular visitor here on TL for a few years. I had never posted anything until today because... well... I didn't think I had something interesting to share probably. Now, since I started recently a little blog to keep track of my trades, I decided it was time to share some of my knowledge about analyzing and trading the crude oil market. More specifically the West Texas Intermediate (Wti) futures market and occasionaly the Brent also. I have been trading for almost 15 years now and was only able to live off my trading profits a few years ago. Becoming a professional trader for me has been difficult and very costly in terms of money lost. If I can help some younger guys avoid some of the mistakes I made, I would consider the time invested in posting here to be worthwhile. Michel G. Julien

Sometimes, on some glorious day, a trader can really have everything going for him, or be in the "zone" if you like. You know the kind of day where every decision you take is right, every analysis you make is spot on and every trade you enter or exit of is a winner? Today was one of those days for me. I wish I could reproduce them at will but, hey, you know that's not the way life works, right? So, you have to enjoy those days when they bless you with their presence and be kind on yourself when they leave you (for another trader possibly, lol). Back to the WTI market now. Today was not a particularly trendy day. It was more a consolidation type of day, as is often the case (not always of course) when the market opens within the previous day's range & value area like it did this morning at 104.76. From there, boundaries were clearly marked out. To the upside, the top of my descending channel was located at 106.00. That's the potential I thought we had if we could clear the 105.30/45 resistance area. To the downside, the bottom of that channel stood at a little bit under 103.98. At the sound of the bell, the market went straigth up to test the aforementioned 105.30 resistance, stopping short of it by only a few ticks. From that level it reversed and went straigth down to the 103.98 support, exceeding it only by a few ticks. After that, the market slowly grinded back up to close pretty much at the same level it opened. For next week, I believe we could still go lower, possibly to the 102 area but before the market needs to take some altitude (maybe up to 106) to be able to make it imho. Even after many years, I still marvel at the accuracy and usefulness of technical analysis. How can someone trade without it is beyond me. When the market went down around 11:00 am to test the bottom of my descending channel, I jumped on the opportunity to finally get out of my short 3 August contracts position (rolled to Sept) at 104.00 for a nice gain. I could have held on to that trade a few more days and, potentially, extract more profit, but I had set today as my deadline on it no matter what. So, I've been kinda lucky, but I'll take it. In the «ZONE» I told you :-) Here are my trades for today: 1. Short 104.42 at 10:13, exit 104.12 at 10:31 for a +30 ticks profit 2. Short 104.39 from 2 weeks ago, exit 104.00 at 10:59 for 3 x 39 ticks = +117 ticks profit 3. Long 104.52 at 11:22, exit 104.72 at 11:31 for a +20 ticks profit. Results: +167 ticks today; +345 ticks this week. For next week, I believe we could still go lower, possibly to the 102 area but before that the market needs to take some altitude (maybe up to 106) to be able to make it imho. We'll see. Have a good week-end and come back here on Monday for more. More articles on my blog Or on my Tweeter stream