Free Investing

Konrad Imielinski submits: Oil prices have increased $3.32 (4.4%) within this time frame: July 1st, 2010 (Thursday) Oil fell $2.68 to $72.95: U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly rose by 13,000 to 472,000 in the week ended June 26th.Complete Story »

Two words that any oil company dreads to hear are “export duty.” Especially if the word “increases” or “introduced” is floating around there too.So when Kazakhstan introduced an oil export duty to meet shortfalls in the national budget, the mood wasn’t exactly jovial.Complete Story »

Brett Owens submits:These days we are keeping a keen eye on markets that have been reliable leading indicators of the stock market. Since 2004 or so, markets have become quite interrelated, creating a lot of interesting relationships in markets that previously had little or no correlation.The correlation of course peaked during the 2007-2009 downturn, when everything dropped by about 50% (except for US Treasuries and the US dollar). I still believe that was the market tipping its hand, showing a glimpse of an even worse crash to come.Complete Story »

Matthew Bradbard submits: After 6 positive days is the stock market's day of reckoning upon us? A failed rally in crude today though the 50 day MA did support prices; that level in August is $76.45. Aggressive traders use that level as your pivot point. The option spread mentioned in recent posts; the October $80/85 settled around $1700 today. Being September natural gas is within 5% of the contract low we think aggressive traders can scale into longs on pullbacks with stops below the contract lows. Our clients have been purchasing October 50 cent call spreads and are currently down on the trade. The indices' appreciation of late has been impressive but with volumes anemic we feel a correction is likely. The problem is if we see a short squeeze, a 4-5% rise would crush bearish positions. This is the trade recommendation we issued today; buy August ES1150 calls for $350 and buy September ES 1075/1000 put spreads for just over $1000. The idea is on a move higher into next week exit the August calls and hold the puts for the coming leg down. IF prices roll over from here cut losses on the calls and hold the put spreads. Cocoa exploded to the upside today gaining 3.55%. This is now a buy dips market. Complete Story »

Hard Assets Investor submits: By Brad ZiglerReal-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -1.8%Tomorrow, the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department, will release its much-watched weekly inventory report. Today, traders will jockey to square their books ahead of the report, guided by goings-on in the trading venues and the industry-supported American Petroleum Institute's inventory estimates.Complete Story »

Paul Kedrosky submits: From a new-ish paper1 on energy transitions, some fascinating data on the share of primary energy consumption by technology in the U.K. from 1500-2000. You can see the slow transition from biomass/food to coal, and then the faster one from coal to oil/natgas, etc. The other thing that struck me was that wind was a larger percentage of primary energy generation in 1700 than it is today. Complete Story »

Sumit Roy submits:Inventories The Department of Energy reported that in the week ending July 2, 2010, U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 5 million barrels, gasoline inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels, distillate inventories increased 0.3 million barrels, and total petroleum inventories increased 0.4 million barrels. While the storage figures look bullish on the surface, they are very much in line with the 5-year average. Moreover, approximately 1.4 million barrels of production was shut-in last week due to Hurricane Alex; adjusting for the storm impact yields a 3.6 million barrel crude oil draw and a 1.7 million barrels total petroleum build— figures which are slightly more bearish than the 5-year average. Complete Story »

Mark J. Perry submits: In August of 2005, Houston banking executive Matthew Simmons (one of the world's "leading experts" on the topic of peak oil, although not very good at predicting oil prices) and New York Times columnist John Tierney each put up $5,000 and made a bet about the price of oil in 2010. The wager was based on the price of oil in 2010, specifically on the average daily price for the entire year, adjusted for inflation into 2005 dollars. If the inflation-adjusted oil price this year is $200 or more per barrel, Mr. Simmons wins $10,000 plus interest, and if the average price this year is less than $200, Tierney wins the bet. Complete Story »

Dian L. Chu submits:
Sentiment in the crude oil market has been quite pessimistic lately after some disappointing economic data fueling fear over the strength of the U.S. recovery, and signs of a possible China slowdown. This is on top of the market distress already exerted by the European sovereign debt and banking crisis. Oil price was down 8% for the week, with the front-month August delivery settled at $72.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.Complete Story »

Luckless Hero submits: The hurricane season this year is slated to be brutal. Already, a hurricane strength storm, hurricane Alex, has entered the Gulf of Mexico (in June!). Fortunately the storm quickly returned to tropical storm strength and was a near miss to Texas. But with the hurricane season arriving so soon I believe that it could prove to be a detriment to the financial stability of the region. I wanted to take a look at some stocks that have the potential to win even in a rough hurricane season. The best part about this game plan is that if these stocks do crush it and outperform the market because of a bad hurricane season then you will have ample funds ready to donate! Win, win.Here are the stocks and strategies that have potential to work during a heavy hurricane season:Complete Story »