Shorting the Onshore Drillers: NBR, HP, PTEN
Mar 20, 2016 Trading Blog
Sorry for the lack of posting guys, I’ve been trading other things over the last 3-4 months and just now getting back into energy stocks since things seem to have stabilized a little. All I have done over that time in the energy sector is short the XLE, and that isn’t much fun to write about day after day.
It’s been a nice bounce off the bottom for the entire sector over the last 6 weeks or so, but the run may be coming to an end. I’m looking to short a few energy names this week and the subsector that appears the ripest to retreat is the onshore drillers. I’ve got PTEN (Patterson UTI), HP (Helmerich and Payne) and NBR (Nabors) in my sights tomorrow to find a spot with a very defined risk to try and hop on board a reaction.
PTEN rolled first and has taken out the 8 day moving average after an upthrust on a relatively high volume day. HP also took out the 8 day on average volume. NBR barely held on to the 8 day, but the volume was heavy. PTEN and HP are showing clear breaks of the uptrend line from early February. PTEN is my first choice to short, but keep an eye on the entire group.
I’d like to see an early pop on PTEN toward the 17.75 range, HP around 61.50 and NBR around 9.35 to take a starter position short.
Tags: Trade Scans