The Jump in Crude
Crude oil prices have been trending lower since last June. Yes, there have been spikes along the way, but all in the overall direction of the trend, which is down. However, over the weekend, OPEC announced some surprise cuts, causing the price of crude to gap along with the SPDR Energy Sector (XLE).
Check out the chart below:
Crude Oil Futures – Daily Chart
XLE
The result in XLE was a significant gap higher through crucial resistance zones.
In fact, due to the weakness in XLE and the SPY, I planned to short the SPY at $400 and XLE at $82. However, when XLE breached above the 200 SMA (purple line), that told me to pause and give it another day to see if the price would return below the 200 SMA for a short.
It did not, and the next trading day experienced a higher gap.
Check out the XLE chart below:
XLE – Daily Chart
Tesla, The Nasdaq, & More!
So, where do we go from here? I didn’t get into my XLE or SPY shorts, and there was also some big news on TSLA, causing a little Nasdaq softness. I’m still trading Tesla prior to earnings, and I’m focusing on April seasonality in mega-cap tech along with keeping an eye on this oil move and the resulting impact on the S&P. While I would have loved follow-through on TSLA after Friday, I don’t think this long is dead yet.
I stopped by TraderTV Live on Monday afternoon to discuss. Check out the video with the full segment below!
