I’ve got five different vertical spreads going, but they’re all leaning toward the bearish side. Just to mix things up, I’d like to offer a long idea for a change: the energy sector, as represented by symbol XOP.
Energy Spread
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Crude Full Circle
And contrarianism wins again.
Not even two weeks ago, everything was breathless about this news:
Outta Gas
I am doing a lot of scalping/day trading these days, and my best position at the moment is my short in XLE, the energy fund. Here it is with a trio of exponential moving averages.
Oil’s Fall Was Obvious
It couldn’t be simpler. If the media is going ape about some given event, and particularly if ZH is clutching its pearls about how such-and-so is going to go to price thus-and-such, you can count on the exact opposite taking place. I offer you Exhibit A:
Marathon Man
As oil went on its biggest up-move in history, I had some concerns about the handful of energy-related shorts in my portfolio. Turns out, as I hoped, that it wasn’t worth wringing my hands over. Just because the commodity itself (crude oil) roars higher in price doesn’t necessarily mean great news for the companies which seek it or process it. Take Marathon Petroleum, for example, one of my shorts. Its down about 2.5% right now, and I think far lower prices are in store. The symbol is MPC:
