Bill-

You will be sending us pictures of clearer waters and more colorful birds soon!

As for oil, $63 is resistance and you are wise to point out that traders should be "selling into strength" here. friday provided a good opportunity to capitalize on a ST bounce. W/O headline support, the charts tell me that it's going below 60 to the 58 level. At least that's my take and how I will approach it.

As for gold, we are still in the silly season where thin trading blows it this way and that. I don't expect a new buy any time soon for me.

The plane is a Cessna model 337 Super Skymaster. The first ones were built in the mid '60s. The U.S. military used a variant O-2A as a forward air controller in Vietnam. It's a twin engine aircraft with one engine up front and the second as a pusher at the back between the booms. So, it's two engines loud.

MarkM - Using the following chart from stockcharts.com:

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=$WTIC,uu[w,a]daolyyay[dd][pb50!b200][vc60][iUk14!Lb14]&pref=G

I see that your $58 level came from the resistance highs from 11 months ago. Good observation. One could call the supports in June, July and November of 05', throw overs of the $58 level, at least that is what I call them. But, on further review, I noticed that these supports are on the 61.8% retracement at roughly $56.75 - another confirmation of fibonacci as a trading tool.

I also see that the uptrend that has formed on this chart (from May, Nov, Dec, Feb lows) is clearly now support. I have no idea if this uptrend support will hold, but for risk purposes, now I am looking at: if this uptrend support is broken, and the price of $wtic goes to $58, the head and shoulder formation that has formed over the last 3 months would be confirmed if the neckline is broken for 3 days. If this neckline is broken, the H&S target is, drumroll please, close enough to the former lows of May, $48, to provide a reasonable downside target. Kind of cool how this stuff works.

I am long oil stocks and have a positive view on them. But, I will remain focused and flexible, and will continue to monitor downside targets for risk management purposes and for adding to positions.

long: IXC, CNX, APA, WHQ

g034-

The way things seem to be going, I am almost expecting some headline "noise" if things get to 58! But you are correct, if it penetrates and fails to recover we could see an excellent LT entry point.

As I expressed this morning, I am not bullish on NG unless it closes over target. So not thinking anyone should enter that right now either.

And just to complete the trifecta, I am bearish on gold S/T and intermediate term as well because of slowing momentum. But geopolitics could put the bear back in his cave.

qcom - might be good for a few points here if it breaks loose.

Bill - "Buzz-bombed" aptly described it today. It seems almost like Mr. J. Rogers, himself, called all the commodity Floors/Pits and shouted: "SELL, SELL, SELL!!!". --ggg!

I'm exagerating, but I just looked at the weekly chart for $CRX (MS Commodity Related Equity Index) with your favorite RSI's(14,7) plus a BollengerBand(40,2.0). Not pretty.

Once again, you were right on the mark about XLE, but the damage goes a lot further than just the stocks in XLE because it seems to me that many small-cap commodity related equities are taking a beating here.

Using the same chart from above for $HUI doesn't look too good either.

BUT, these charts are weekly, and today is just the first day of the week.

Interesting read:

http://www.weedenco.com/welling/Downloads/2006/0804welling022106.pdf

No one here should be surprised.

I believe gold eased due to oil easing, since worried and overhyped traders are relaxed and coming to their senses after the events last week.
But I doubt this will be consistent(at least for gold). Gold appears to be basing intraday on the hourly chart. It's a great time to pick up shares of gold stocks like NEM or RGLD which will probably bounce sharply today or tomorrow(disclosure: no holdings in either)
Overall, I would view this as noise and am not at all worried.

Bill-

With apologies (again) to MoverMike, dollar top looks much more likely on my charts hereabouts, unless the "Snow-birds" put some "bills" on their tabs soon. If this is top, spot, g034 and I can have fun discussing implications of this formation today.

Long: Gold, treasuries and everything else hedged against underlying indices.

g034/spot/FirstConsul-

Looks like S/T topping action ($USD)at least. Good for gold near term so perhaps The FirstConsul Online Portfolio will have a good start (NEM and RGLD)! :)

MarkM - Sometimes, I have to admit that I just don't know, and this is one of those times.

Both Gold and the Dollar dropped yesterday. Actually, if one looks at the past 5 daily candles on each chart, both charts have the same color candles for each day and vary only in degree of movement; so, Gold and the Dollar appear to me to be moving in the same direction currently.

I don't have a good sense about what happened yesterday - maybe it was just noise, or a change in management of one of the large "natural resource" mutual funds, or just the "big guys" setting the stage for buying at a low point in the next couple of months or prior to entering the next war or hurricane season (June 1).

In any case, I'm sitting on my hands on Oil and Gold until I get a confirmed signal to do otherwise. That's just me, though, and I'm frequently wrong. Good luck on your being right!

spot/g034/FirstConsul-

This looks like the spot (11:30am) to put on a trade as the miners became oversold and are recovering, that is, if one is looking for a S/T play.

g034-

This is a follow-on to the conversation we've been having about oil:

(www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B0E4CEEE2%2DD8E5%2D4731%2DA9A8%2D349917EACA9D%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=moreover)

It discusses the possibility of a rollover in oil and copper. I have also been following the Mr. Copper chart because it is widely viewed as the best one tool signal for general commodities demands/economic conditions. Bill has mentioned this use in the past. Right now it looks a little suspect and very similar to the $CRB pattern in general. For those of you heavily into commodities in your portfolios, you know what I mean.