A New Year Approaches 2017
Dec 21, 2016 Trading Blog
Well, it’s almost a new year and a time to set new goals for my trading. One of my goals is to update the blog a little more consistently this year. I use this blog mostly as a storage space for my trading notes and lately I haven’t been doing enough journaling of my trades and research. I have been keeping most of my research in the Twitter feed and will continue to post many things there.
I notice that as my willingness to write things down decreases, so do my trading results. Maybe it is just the discipline to sit down and actually write, or maybe I just remember things better when I write. Whatever the case, it’s time to start making more trading notes.
So why not just start today!?!
Very slow day in energy land today with the XLE trading in a 40 cent range and closing at 76.14. The services side of the market was a little stronger with the OIH 33.90 (+.6%) leading the XOP 41.91 (-.2%).
The 10:30 EIA oil number was a bit disappointing coming in at a 2.2 million build rather than the 2.3 draw that was expected. Oil stocks took a quick dip under yesterday’s close, but shook the number off quickly and were back green within minutes of the release.
On my top 50 market cap energy stock list there were 19 advances and 31 declines, with the list coming in at a -.04% change overall. Offshore drillers and the smaller shale producers were the main negatives.
The strongest group was the natural gas stocks with UNG up about 8%. COG, RRC, EQT, SWN and RICE were all up greater than 2%, with SWN up a leading 6.5%.
Offshore drillers were the weakest group with RIG, ATW, NE, SDRL, RDC and ESV all down more than 2%. SDRL was the weakest of the group at -5.1%.
The best trading stock of the day was HAL, up 3.1%. The move up was a steady climb all day on above average volume.
After hours had news of APC making another asset sale, this one of the Marcellus assets for 1.24 billion. They are really narrowing their focus to the DJ and Delaware Basins and the GoM. Will be keeping an eye on that one tomorrow.
As for trading tomorrow, probably not going to be much action with Christmas approaching. I’ll be looking again at the natural gas stocks, probably COG and RRC for a pullback entry and continuation. I also thought the refiners would do better today and will be watching MPC and VLO tomorrow for possible longs.
I’ll be posting more trade plans in the blog this coming year, as that seems to force me to get myself prepared and organized. These are my trades and notes, not investment advice, so read accordingly.