- The Bull And Bear Arguments
- The Big Issue For Stocks: Selloff In Materials
- Why Stocks Were Lower
- Sell Into Rallies Still Rules Street
- Markets Oversold, Traders Bearish
- How Today's Market Took Step In Right Direction
- Why Buying Remains "Muted"
- How Bad Is It? Even Liquor Sales Are Down
- Ending One Strange Quarter--No Other Way To Describe It
- Bear Market? Not There Yet
- Bowyer: Back to Monarchy in Land Rights?
- Parking Cash in European Telecoms
- Bargain Stocks: Nokia, Spectra, Incitex Pivot
- Sticker Shock: Fast Money's Inflation Special
- Our Favorite Inflation Trades
- Warren Buffett's Annual Stock Gift to Gates Foundation Worth $1.8B This Year
- That '70's Trade
- The Villain Of Our Story
- The Blame Game
- EU Opens Probe in BHP Billiton Bid for Rio Tinto
- Worse Car Sales Decline Expected in Western Europe
- Euro Banks Need to Raise $90-$140 Billion: Goldman
- BSkyB Mulls $4 Billion Bid for Spain's Digital Plus: FT
- On the Bright Side, Shopping Bargains Abound
- Euro Stocks Fall as Goldman Note Hits Banks
- Return of Asian Currency Crisis Is Unlikely: ADB
- European Shares Set to Open Flat as Holiday Shuts US
- Airbus to Sell Five A380s to Japan's ANA: Nikkei

Are energy stocks topping? With oil (the commodity) and energy stocks going parabolic in the past couple of months, it's little wonder that there has been a concerted attempt to short the energy complex this week.
Mostly, it has been unsuccessful.
You can see this in the record volume that the UltraShort Oil & Gas ProShares [DUG
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] attracted. It provides twice the inverse performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Index, a basket of stocks in the oil and gas industry. So if the index goes down 1 percent, you make 2 percent.
The United States Oil Fund [USO
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], which roughly tracks the price of oil, has also attracted near-record volume this week, as traders are also able to short this fund as well.
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Yesterday, there was a concerted attempt to sell off oil, as well as oil and natural gas stocks, as traders were betting that the weekly inventory levels would show a build in reserves and this would be the right moment to take profits. It didn't happen -- there was actually a drawdown in supplies, so sellers were forced to cover short positions by selling the DUG or buying the USO.
Despite the pain inflicted on shorts, this is a good sign, an indication that a fairly sizeable group is trying to pick a top in energy.
Questions? Comments?




