What The Market Is Saying…
In energy trading today,
markets were awaiting
news from OPEC. The results
were that OPEC would keep production quotas unchanged, keeping its
oil-production target at 21.7 million barrels a day for the next three months. Crude oil for August delivery
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beginning of the session on the NYMEX, but oil worked its
way into a rally and closed positive to $26.69 a barrel. The move upwards was an
increase of .38 or 1.44%. August heating oil
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rally and posted a .65 of a cent gain or .97% to 67.50 cents a gallon. August
unleaded gasoline
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up 1.14% and August natural gas
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towards the end of trading attempted a rally, but ended lower by .14 to 3.35.
In a separate announcement, the U.S. Energy Department reported its weekly
supply report at 3.4 million barrels. This was smaller than the American
Petroleum Institute’s figure of 6.3 million barrels. The department reported an
increase of 1.2 million barrels in gasoline inventories, compared with the API’s
estimate of a 1.5 million-barrel increase.
In the broader Index futures, it looked like a
possibly catastrophic day with the futures trading extremely low for the
opening of the U.S. markets. Upon the opening, the September Dow Jones
futures
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and opened at 8890, trading as low as 8870. By the end of the session, any bad
news had been shrugged off and the Dow futures closed at 9115, up 10.00.
One of the most constructive things that could have happened is for the market to end the day having bounced back from its lows in the face of the Worldcom news (among other things). For this to happen near the widely watched September
2000 lows bodes well for the near-term action.Â
The Nasdaq 100, being influenced by the Nasdaq
Composite Index, was lower on the day. The Nasdaq Composite made a five-year
low today before rallying back near the end of the day. The September Nasdaq
100
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The S&P 500 futures for September
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outside of positive territory to close negative at 974.00 down .50.
In the precious metals, August gold futures
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markets. Gold only managed to eke out a small gain after being up
around $325 per ounce. GCQ2 closed at $20.00 an ounce up .69. July
silver
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again matched gold in terms of movement and sentiment, falling to the $4.85
region after an early start around $4.90. July silver closed at $4.852 up1.80
cent. July copper
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75.20 a pound.
In the strong-moving grain market,
showers
and thunderstorms sent corn futures slightly lower in early trade today, but
December corn
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rally. December corn
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Despite the rain, hot weather is still in the forecast and will continue to be a
factor, so the rally in September wheat was not disrupted and closed up by 1 1/4
of a cent to $3.01 a bushel. And July soybeans put in a strong performance today,
rallying over 10 cents to close at $5.14 a bushel and breaking above the 5.12
resistance level.