Market Internals for Oil

[The Bear 10]

Does something like the TRIN or TICK exist for the crude oil market (CL). What do the floor traders use for market internals?

[notouch 10]

How could there be something like that? TICK and TRIN are specific to stock indices where the underlying is made up of many different stocks. Crude oil is just crude oil.

[Guest cooter]

Crude Oil is sensitive to fundamentals. News and economic reports drive the market.

 

Here's a good place to start for U.S. energy reports:

 

Energy Information Administration - EIA - Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government

[The Bear 10]

Thanks Cooter. I was reading those reports from that website a few months ago and I do trade on wed., but I find the reports to be pretty useless for intra-day trading for my style. Maybe more useful for overnight?

[Guest 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?

[walterw 10]

I am curious to see an Oil chart.... intraday.... thanks Walter.

[nasdaq5048 10]

IMO, there are actual market internals for crude.

 

Crack spread, Gasoline spread, Heating spread, Back month spread, Nat Gas up down tick are all good clues for crude prices.

[walterw 10]

nasdaq : can you share symbols or how to get that internal data, will be interesting to take a look... thanks Walter.

[Guest cooter]

These are not internals, are they? I thought they were contracts, in different months and/or products, unless I'm mistaken.

 

Crack spread - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[walterw 10]

no cooter : an internal is a breath statistical index from a sector of the market.... there are very diferent aproaches on the construction of internals, but the idea is to know the overrall market sentiment thru this indexes.... foroil... I dont know.... what "market" context would apply...

[notouch 10]

They're related markets but definitely not internals.

[The Bear 10]

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 10]

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?

[Guest 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 10]

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

[The Bear 10]

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.

[Guest 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 10]

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.

[Guest 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 10]

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

[The Bear 10]

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.)

 

9 ticks, that's pretty nice. Do you trade the initial spike or stand aside.

[Guest cooter]

9 ticks, that's pretty nice. Do you trade the initial spike or stand aside.

 

Straddle on the initial spikes. Only 2 cars this time around, although I've done this with up to 25 cars at a clip. Major stress, though - as you can imagine.

[Guest cooter]

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

 

I'm rather myopic about the grains. Don't really care where it's headed after the day is over.

 

Keeps me from forming opinions about where I think the market is going, when all I really need to focus upon is where the market is taking me each day.

 

It's a subtle, but important nuance that has vastly improved my portfolio.

[The Bear 10]

Straddle on the initial spikes. Only 2 cars this time around, although I've done this with up to 25 cars at a clip. Major stress, though - as you can imagine.

 

Ya sometimes you have to go for the throat....it's how we make the huge gains. I don't like that feeling in my stomach though, when I over leverage myself, all it would take is one freak incident and I'm a gonner...I'll be working at wendy's for the rest of my life I find my heart beats so rapidly at these times I can't think logically.

 

>I'm rather myopic about the grains. Don't really care where it's headed after >the day is over.

 

>Keeps me from forming opinions about where I think the market is going, when >all I really need to focus upon is where the market is taking me each day.

 

You mean it's possible to actually trade these things intra-day? I always thought ags was mostly overnight trading. Maybe I gotta check it out one day. From what I remembered I looked at the intra-day charts and they were full of gaps, holes, and mess.

[Guest cooter]

You mean it's possible to actually trade these things intra-day? I always thought ags was mostly overnight trading. Maybe I gotta check it out one day. From what I remembered I looked at the intra-day charts and they were full of gaps, holes, and mess.

 

Yep. Since this is an oil thread, I posted some screenshots of the grains over on the Volume on Ag's thread....

 

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f87/volume-ags-1588.html#post9549