- Yoshikami: Four Things You Need to Know About Gold Now
- Steinbock: The Euro Zone Endgame Begins
- Laouchez: Leadership in Financial Services — Missing in Action?
- Kuntz: Finding Opportunity in Emerging Markets
- Busch: How to Trade the Euro on an Outside Reversal
- Dunkelberg: The Real Banking Crisis - They're Too Big to Manage
- Greek Exit a Worse Mistake Than Adoption of Euro
- Tamminen: Waste Not, Want Not
- Morici: The Eclipse of American Banking
- Will This Decade Be More Grim Than the 1930s?
MOST SHARED
- JPMorgan Trading Loss: Did Regulators Miss the Risk?
- Marc Faber: 100% Chance of Global Recession
- RIM May Cut at Least 2,000 Jobs in Restructuring: Report
- How Boaz Weinstein and Hedge Funds Outsmarted JPMorgan
- How Nasdaq Lost Control of Facebook IPO, by the Minute
- As Bank Loans Dry Up in Spain, Small and Medium Businesses Fight for Life
- Citigroup Lost $20 Million on Facebook IPO Trades
- The Biggest Market Myth There Is?
- Judge Says Skilling Can Seek New Trial
- What College Tuition Will Look Like in 18 Years
- A New Look at the ‘New Poor’
- Six Pack: Beer Buzz of the Week
- Greek Exit Could Trigger 50% Fall in Euro Stocks: Analyst
- Under Pressure, FHA Skews to Wealthier Home Buyers
- Big Stock Upside for Hudson City Deal: Analyst
- 5 High-Yield Stocks Ready to Boost Dividends
- Yoshikami: Four Things You Need to Know About Gold Now
- Steinbock: The Euro Zone Endgame Begins
- Option Bulls Take Another Shot on Idenix
- How Nasdaq Lost Control of Facebook IPO, by the Minute
- Week Ahead: Europe Has Wall Street Bull on Short Leash
- Pro-Bailout Greeks Regain Lead in Polls Before Vote
- Citigroup Lost $20 Million on Facebook IPO Trades
- JPMorgan to Shake Up Risk Team After Big Loss: Report
- RIM May Cut at Least 2,000 Jobs in Restructuring: Report
- EU Finalizes Bank Reforms; Shifts Burden to Bondholders
- Spain's Bankia Eyes Stake Sales After Record Bailout
- EU Set to Launch Action Against China Over Telecom Aid
RSS FEED
CNBC Guest Blog
Text Size 
Schork Oil Outlook: We're Staying Bearish
Stephen Schork
Editor of
"The Schork Report"
ENERGY PRICES WERE STRONG AT THE END OF LAST WEEK… crude oil futures in New York and London finished at the highest levels since that curious spike on the Friday following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November. Meanwhile, speaking of curious, NYMEX Henry Hub gas futures finished at a five-week high.
Henry Hub Natural Gas Weekly Trend… BEARISH.
Here at The Schork Report, we found last week’s move in the moment following Thursday’s EIA release was utterly confounding. To recap, the underground storage report of gas in the U.S. as of March 13th was within 16 percent or 4 Bcf of the average and median forecasts of 20 industry analysts polled in a survey by Bloomberg. The report was 30 percent or 14 Bcf below the seasonal norm and 65 percent or 55 Bcf below the delivery from a year ago. Consequently, the year-on-year surplus ballooned from 283 Bcf (+20%) to 338 Bcf (+26%).
The report was hardly bullish. Be that as it may, in the three minutes following the 10:30 am release, spot NYMEX Henry Hub futures spiked 19 percent or 69.6 cents.
Got that? 69.6 cents in three minutes… or ≈$0.004 per second. That is a move, absent of a headline, which obviously defies logic. Regardless, illogical or not, the move has generated a significant amount of short covering.
Yet, we remain unconvinced and we will maintain our Bearish weekly bias.
As we look ahead to this Thursday’s report, the typical delivery is around 38 Bcf. Last year the EIA reported a 37 Bcf delivery for the corresponding week (21-Mar-08). Nationwide implied weather demand last week was generally bearish. For instance, degree days in Chicago were one third below the prior week and one fourth below normal. In New York City degree days were slightly higher, 4.7%, week-on-week, but one eighth below normal.
In other words, we are not going to see a bullish report this week. But, then again, we did not see a bullish report last week… and a lot of good that did us bears. As far as this week goes, The Schork Report projects bids through last week’s 4.424 high print to follow through momentum towards our 4.532 weekly inflection-point. We will look for further strength above here towards our 4.931 intra-week. On the other hand, offers through last week’s 4.048 pivot-low clear a path towards our 3.922 inflection-point.
Below here we will look for corrective offers towards our 3.523 intra-week limit.
Read what other CNBC Contributors are saying...
_________________________
Stephen Schork is the Editor of, "The Schork Report" and has more than 17 years experience in physical commodity and derivatives trading, risk systems modeling and structured commodity finance.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
