Well I have not been writing a lot lately. The truth is I am a little “out of sync” with the markets these days. And I prefer to write when I feel like I have at least some idea of what the heck is going on. Which is a good thing I think.
So for today let’s just review and update some relevant things that I have written about in the past.
Soybeans
In this article I suggested a bullish position in May soybean futures. Under the category of “One for the Good Guys”, beans have rallied nicely as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – May Soybeans (Courtesy: www.Barchart.com)
At this point a trailing stop – or selling half into strength and using a trailing stop on the remaining position – sounds like a good idea to me. It should also be noted that “First Notice Day” for May soybeans is 4/29. Bottom line, unless you want someone to dump 5,000 bushels of soybeans in your front yard (OK, it doesn’t really work like that but it is fun envision that it does), then you need to exit any and all long positions in May beans before that date. This can involve taking profits, rolling into July or both.
Crude Oil (ETF ticker USO)
In this article I wrote about entering a somewhat bullish position using put options on ticker USO. As you can see in Figure 2, it is “so far so good”. At this point the trade has captured $588 of the initial $689 credit.
Figure 2 – USO put position (Courtesy www.OptionsAnalysis.com)
One position management note: USO is at a key price level as you can also see in Figure 2. If USO fails to break through to the upside I would consider taking some (or even all) profits and moving on to the next trade, rather than waiting another 3 months in hopes of capturing the remaining profit potential.
Gold
In this article I wrote about a relatively crude moving average method I use to help identify the trend of gold. As you can see in Figure 3, my “Anti-Gold” index recently flipped back to being “bullish” for gold (by virtue of the fact that the “anti-gold” index flipped to being bearish).
Figure 3 – Ticker GLD vs. Jay’s “Anti-Gold” Index (Courtesy AIQ TradingExpert)
So does this mean it is “clear sailing” for all things gold related? Not at all. All moving average systems are susceptible to whipsaws. This one is no exception. In the short-term gold and gold stocks appear to be overbought. Still, as you can see in Figure 4, the Elliott Wave count for ticker GLD is suggesting the possibility for higher prices in the not too distant future.
Figure 4 – Bullish Elliott Wave count for GLD (Courtesy ProfitSource by HUBB)
Jay Kaeppel
Chief Market Analyst at JayOnTheMarkets.com and TradingExpert Pro client
