What’s Up, What’s Down: Energy Futures Low, Grains Sharply Lower
Comments for Monday, October 6, 2008
Looking Ahead to Today By Reflecting back at Friday’s price action
ENERGIES:
Lower for crude oil and heating oil along with the rbob and natural gas. All of the energies still continue to be in downtrends overall in extremely choppy action like most of the futures are experiencing these days.
GRAINS:
Sharply lower closes for oats, soybeans, soymeal and bean oil, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Chicago wheat long with rough rice and corn. The entire wheat complex continues to be in a downtrend with Minneapolis, Kansas City and Chicago wheat making new recent lows and closes.
Corn also made a new recent low and close with no good support down to the 425 area. Rice sharply lower giving me a sell signal. Oats continued its strong downtrend making a new recent low and close. Finally, there were new recent lows and closes also for the entire bean complex.
MEATS:
Higher for pork bellies and feeder cattle, mixed for lean hogs and lower for live cattle. October cattle made a new contract low and close again while December made a new recent close as cattle’s downtrend continues. Feeder cattle closed slightly higher but right off session’s lows continuing to be in a strong downtrend.
Hogs settled higher in the October contract and lower in December with a bear flag formation in the latter but both continue to look lower overall. Also there are still gaps overhead to be aware of but getting to be further and further away. Bellies closed sharply higher holding its support area (9000-9250) basis the February contract but still with no good direction at this time.
METALS:
Higher for copper and silver while lower for gold and platinum. Copper made a new recent low again but closed higher this time. However, copper is in a strong downtrend overall. Silver and gold are in support areas and are difficult for me to call at this time so I’m standing aside for now. Platinum, on the other hand, continues to look very weak making a new contract low and close again.
SOFTS:
LUMBER: Lumber settled one tick higher, which isn’t saying much after being sharply lower on Thursday.
COCOA: Cocoa made a new recent low again but settled higher this time. However, the downtrend is entrenched at this time.
SUGAR: Sugar made a new recent low and close after settling settled lower for the 3rd trading session in a row.
COTTON: Cotton settled down again actually looking like it will fall out of bed even at these low levels!
COFFEE: Coffee closed sharply lower again making a new contract low and close.
ORANGE JUICE: OJ settled higher but in a bear pennant in a very bearish market.
Rick Alexander has been a broker and analyst in the futures business for over thirty years. He is a Vice-President for Sales and Trading at the Zaner Group (www.zaner.com) a Chicago-based futures brokerage firm. If you would like a free booklet explaining the charts mentioned above, email Rick at ralexander@zaner.com.