Levels To Focus On In Oil
In today’s early
trade, the oil market was not as shaky as the past couple of sessions. One
reason is that there were no further actions or statements in support of Iraq’s
embargo from Iran, the second-largest producer in OPEC. Iran, together with
Libya, had earlier expressed sympathy for the idea of using oil as a weapon
against Israel’s allies, including the United States. The market also shrugged
off a strike by oil workers Tuesday in Caracas.
Crude-oil prices retreated, aided by
signs of a possible Israeli withdrawal from some Palestinian-held areas and a
lack of support for Iraq’s oil embargo. May crude oil futures (CLK2)
were down 71 cents in afternoon trading at $25.82 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange, up from the day’s low of $25.62 a barrel. Crude oil has
support at 25.35 and secondary support at 24.45. Resistance is at 26.15 and
secondary resistance is at 26.71. Traders will
want to focus on the potential of a bounce at these resistance levels if oil
continues its pullback.
May gasoline
(
HUK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost 0.80 cent
or .95% to 83.39 cents a gallon; May natural gas
(
NGK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) slid 1.30
cents to $3.20 per million British thermal units and May heating oil
(
HOK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) dropped 1.5 cent or 2.16% to 67.80 cents a gallon.
Stocks declined Tuesday as hopes for a strong
earnings season faded with each corporate announcement.
In mid afternoon trading, the June Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
(
DJM2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up for most of the day slipped to test its 10,200 support level
before attempting a come back. The DJM2 lost 43.00 to end at 43.00.
The Nasdaq Composite Index
(
NDM2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
moved down 47.00 or 3.255% to 1356.00 after gaining the previous session.
The June Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index
futures
(
SPM2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost 7.10 to end at 1120.40. Support is at 1120.12
and resistance is at 11225.81.
Soybean futures for May
(
SK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose on the Chicago Board of Trade,
recovering from the previous session’s slide rallying 4 1/4 cents to $4.62 1/4
per bushel. Grains did not fare as well.. Wheat for May delivery
(
WK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
lost .03 cents to $2.70 a bushel and May corn
(
CK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost 1/2 a cent
to $2.01 a bushel.
Precious metals were trading mostly lower.
June gold
(
GCM2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile
Exchange broke below its $300.00 an ounce support level. trading at $299.50 a
troy ounce, $1.80 lower from Monday and just above its intraday low of $299.20.
May silver
(
SIK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) shed 1.20 cents to trade at $4.558 an ounce.
May copper
(
HGK2 |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied up .400 to 72.70.