Sellers Take Energies By Storm

Traders evacuated long positions accumulated in
anticipation of hurricane Debby, taking the nearby contract off highs and
erasing most of the hefty gains accumulated in Monday’s big, 6% rally.
Meteorologists said the chance that Debby would hit oil and gas rigs in the Gulf
of Mexico and refineries along the Gulf coast dropped to 15% and brought some
calm to a very edgy market. 

Natural gas also began making good on its Turtle Soup Plus One
Sell
setup below the previous 4.565 high to end down .227 at 4.520. 

Debby also moved past the second largest oil refinery in
the Western hemisphere, located on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. With
no major disruptions forecast, September crude oil
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 fell 1.25 to 31.22,
heating oil
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 dropped .0197 to .9035, and unleaded gasoline
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.0260 to .9333

Financial futures got what they expected from the Fed
when the Open Market Committee announced its decision Tuesday to leave interest
rates unchanged, while stating that there was still the threat of inflation. September S&P futures
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head-faked higher, leaving an intraday island-reversal top that the market was
unable to clear on an attempt later in the session. The intraday island top
acted as resistance and the market went over 10 handles lower from there before
settling a fraction higher at 1507.50. NASDAQ 100 futures
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fell 11.50
to 3845.00 and
Dow futures
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gained 61.0 to 11,198.0.

A stronger dollar continued to weigh on
dollar-denominated precious metals.
December gold
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traded lower for a third day, losing 1.7 to 278.3 and
silver
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, also from the Implosion-5 List,
continues its steady descent to end 2.0 lower at 484.8. Copper
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also
made good on a Turtle Soup Plus One Buy
setup, recovering some ground loss on Monday’s drop out of an island
top. 

A much weaker-than-expected business-confidence survey
out of Germany sapped the conviction of traders long European currency futures.
The euro tanked and the highly correlated Swiss franc unit
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fell to a
new contract low. Swiss franc futures
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are declining for a seventh
straight week and made good on their Implosion-5 List
reading to end .0025 lower at .5765.
September dollar index futures
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, of course, went the other way,
adding .28 to close at 111.65.

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