Separating The Wheat From The Chaff
With very little new fundamental information coming into
the market, traders took their cue from the weather and sold wheat late
in the session. Forecasts call for rain in the plains states and the moisture
should help seedlings. Wheat gave signs that it could trade lower by registering
on the both the Pullback From
Lows and Implosion-5
lists before dropping 4 1/2 to 261 3/4 on the session. Corn closed flat and
March soybeans
(
SH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell 3 to 453 1/4.
In stock index futures trading,
Dow futures
(
DJH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) were the contract to watch as IBM, Johnson &
Johnson, General Electric and Wal-Mart took off. Traders rotated into blue
chips ahead of Greenspan’s bi-annual “Humphrey-Hawkins” testimony. Dow
futures exploded late in the day out of a Slim Jim consolidation that coincided
with a Pullback From Highs
trigger level. Dow futures closed 135.0 higher at 10,972.0.
S&P futures
(
SPH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) opened at the trigger
handle of their Turtle Soup Plus One Buy
setup and stayed above the opening tick for the entire session. The March
contract closed up 12.00 at 1333.50.
Traders squared bond positions one day ahead of
Greenspan’s testimony, sending
T-bonds
(
USH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down 19/32 to 104 13/32.
In energies, lowered forecasts of demand for oil by the
International Energy Agency took some of the buying pressure off oil.
March crude oil
(
CLH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell .52 to
30.51,
heating oil
(
HOH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost .0216 to .8008, and
unleaded gasoline
(
HUH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) slipped .082 to .8929.
Natural gas
(
NGH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
futures plunged, despite cool Midwest temperatures, as traders looked ahead to the
end of the heating fuel season and expectations of a build up of inventories.
Nat gas tanked .389 to 5.821.
Cocoa
(
CCH1 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied out of a
Pullback From Highs
setup, triggered above the high of Friday’s low-bar (day three) day. Cocoa came
back after falling as many as 85 points Wednesday and Thursday of last week. The market
reacted in part to the Commitment
of Traders Report, which showed there was not too large of a long
position by small speculators reporting positions. March closed 25 higher
at 1037.
