December
Light Sweet Crude is holding a bullish formation, and the daily chart
reveals a potential $17 long move, if the global market stars align.
There is substantial support around the $77 area, and that is where a
bullish flag has formed.
The ETF that covers the crude technical set-up, and offers leverage
to play the move with no cost of carry (or delivery threats) is USO, or
United States Oil Fund. The ETF links the same move, and allows a more
affordable way of taking the oil trade.
As most new generation global traders understand, the above oil
moves create money flows across borders, because of the supply and
demand aspect that the technical chart reflects. As such, there is a
third way to play the move, with the least amount of margin
requirement, and that is via the spot currency markets.
The technical impact will show itself in a number of potential cross
pair set-ups. For example, Canada is a major oil producer, while the
U.S. and Japan are major consumers. The Japanese economy is
particularly vulnerable to global commodity price moves, as it is an
economy with no natural resources to tap, yet one of the world's
largest exporters of machinery, vehicles, and manufactured goods. The
U.S. is a refiner of Canadian oil, and the supply and demand story will
be seen in that pair as well.
When we review the currency charts we have to accept that forex
values are followers of global market drivers, and as such there will
always be a delay in the impact in Usd/Cad and Usd/Jpy. As forex
traders we will also have to wait for the day that oil breaks, and is
backed by overall global trade holding $ values lower.
It is a matter of being aware of the interconnected market that
will drive a currency, and waiting patiently for the fundamental and
technical set up in the Forex market. This way, we have both a
technical and fundamental reason for the move that will pay dividends
in the long run.
We have the trade numbers on oil and on cad (Usd/Cad) loaded as a
signal, just gathering dust until the perfect storm hits, because when
it does it will be a play that will very likely hold for some time.
All we do now is wait and see if the set up comes to us.
In trade on Friday we can see the impact of oil moving lower (in a
near-term move that tests the daily chart $77 support), while at the
same time Usd/Cad has been the only major pair to move, hold, and start
moving again. As oil finds a base, the intra-day signals will start to
flash on Usd/Cad, and although not the only driver of C$ values, it is
by far the easiest one to read and play.
As traders, we get paid to wait as much as we are paid to be
involved, and in the hurry-up-and-wait world of global trade, patience
is a virtue that most have a permanent short position in, and hold that
position with no stop loss in place. A long-patience trade has a
fear-of-loss premium, but the risk-to-reward is exponentially greater.