Today I want to talk about something that makes the world go round…
It’s gooey…
It’s volatile…
But no, it’s not love.
This stuff is needed for fertilizers to grow our food… for distribution to bring that food to the shops… to heat our homes… to drive our cars… to make the clothes on our backs… and the plastic toys our kids play with…
Of course, what I’m talking about is the thick black goo that comes out of the ground – oil.
Without oil, most of the world’s economies would come to a grinding halt. It is a market that responds to every twist and turn in economic data and political news like no other.
And, unlike other markets, it has the power to halt a global recovery in its tracks. When oil gets too expensive, it drags down economies – like a lead ball around their ankles.
Let’s look at how oil moves compared to other big markets…
On 27 August, when the US Secretary of Defense said “We are ready to go” about air strikes on Syria, here’s how Wall Street reacted…
And oil…
Every move a market makes is a potential profit for a trader. Which means that oil offers much greater rewards than most other markets.
Just imagine if you’d been able to get just a fraction of those oil moves? At just a couple of pounds a point you could have cleared a £1,000+ profit in just a few hours.
But these big moves also get to the nub of why so few traders feel they can get involved in the oil market.
A volatile market demands very wide stop losses. And wide stop losses mean deep pockets.
If you’re expecting moves in the range of 250 points per day, you can’t expect to jump into that market with a 20-point stop loss and survive.
The Volatility Paradox
Traders have a love-hate relationship with volatility.
We need it to make profits – a market that barely moves isn’t going to do us any favours.
But too volatile, and we get bumped out of our trades every five minutes as our stop losses get hit.
Again, that doesn’t do us any favours.
The answer?
Well, most traders fudge a messy solution to this – they find a market that has middle-of-the-road volatility. Not too much, not too little.
And then, something happens, like Ben Bernanke delaying QE tapering on Wednesday night, and BOOM…
Their not-too-much, not-too-little, ‘Goldilocks’ market blows them out of their trades.
So much for nice, safe, middle-of-the-road markets.
There must be a better solution
There must be a way to take advantage of big, gutsy markets like oil, without having to rely on massively wide stop losses that’ll cost you too much.
Because, until now, most ordinary traders have to either keep out of oil all together. Or, those few brave souls to try it out will often have their fingers burned.
Meanwhile, the big players are making a killing.
And the rest of us have to sit on our hands, imagining how great it must be to take advantage of such a spectacularly volatile market.
Well, that is until now.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been following a trading strategy that lets the ‘little guy’ into oil moves.
This isn’t some oil stock that’s dependent on oil prices going up (you can make money either way on this – whether the oil market goes up or down).
And it doesn’t require you to rely on a stop loss 100s of points away, taking huge risks with your money.
In fact, it’s a very risk-averse way of trading.
If you’ve never considered oil trading before, finally, your chance is here.
If you’ve tried trading oil, but found it too ‘rich’ for your pocket, this is your way in.
I’ll be emailing you tomorrow morning with all the details, so please watch out for my message.
In the next seven days…
Last Wednesday’s news that we’ll keep getting full-throttle economic stimulus from the Fed means that the guessing game of when tapering will begin continues…
This situation puts a tricky spin on any piece of data. If the Fed won’t start tapering until they’re more confident in a recovery, every piece of good news can be seen as bad news by the market.
The result is that, more than ever, it’s anyone’s guess which way markets will move on data releases. And there’s no shortage of data next week to test this on…
First off, on Sunday, we’ve the German elections, which are expected to result in an easy win for Merkel.
On Monday, a bank holiday in Japan, the regular round of PMIs begins with China, the Eurozone and the US.
Tuesday’s data from the US could show us that house prices are bouncing back, with the S&P/CS index expected to be up by over 12% on the year. Durable goods orders and new home sales are also expected to be in positive (but more modest) territory.
Thursday sees the release of the final quarterly GDP figures for the UK and the US.
