This morning I made some comparison charts of the four stocks above, compared to the Crude Light Futures chart. All Monthly Charts
It appears STO tracks the crude futures very closely, at least it has recently.
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BPT also tracks crude fairly closely, albeit with larger swings in either direction.
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DLS does follow the crude price bat has been resilient for some time, and is more reluctant to give up ground.
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SEA has been following the crude price recently, and was acting stronger, but has now given up almost all of that advantage.
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All these charts follow the crude price to some point, so a closer look at what the crude price is saying is probably in order.
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Here is the crude light futures chart-
CL Monthly
In particular looking at the last year (green box) (I also used a quarterly chart to help with the analysis here, which is below).
The three bars inside the first box show an attempt to support the market, and then absorb the supply, which kept coming in.
Then price rose in response.
Following that are two narrow spread bars on much lower volume, which suggest a lack of demand for higher prices.
Price then came off with an increased spread, mostly under its own weight, but perhaps with a small increase in selling pressure as well, and the next bar (arrowed) show's a continuing attempt to support the market at a similar level to previously.
The next bar is a narrow spread down bar on the highest monthly volume so far - which suggests that the market is still attempting to support the market, and the next bar does attempt to respond towards the upside (confirming the support), but it closes off its high on above average volume. Both these bars are showing supply is still coming in & also the difficulty price is having to maintain a rally.
Then price begins to break down, but initially remains within the body of the arrowed bar.
Finally on this month's bar, spread has narrowed slightly, there is a close near the middle, and volume was the highest on the chart (perhaps the highest monthly volume ever). Which looks like a reluctance to come off and breakdown (again).
There are obviously some serious opposing forces at work here, with no clear winner yet.
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Finally,
My own homemade Crude Futures quarterly chart
I made this (rough) chart on excel, as I was having some difficulties reading some of the price action on the monthly chart.
And it helped me work through some of the more difficult area's.
It should also be noted that the current bar did not quite reach the horizontal line below.
I expect price will tag that line at some time, and I will be surprised if it doesn't, perhaps forming a spring......or possibly forming another breakdown......
The last four quarterly bars show-
A reduction is selling pressure and tentative support coming in.
Then a response higher, but on reducing volume, suggesting demand is not strong.
Price then came off, but showed a reluctance to breakdown.
The last bar shows an inability to maintain a rally, and a poor close below all the previous trading action.
Price appears drawn to that green horizontal line, like a magnet.....
In a nutshell-
wait for a more bullish setup on the crude charts,
or a break below the green horizontal line and then a failure to recover it,
before using one of the oilers as a proxy for it.
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(20min delay)
