The long weekend obviously worked up the commodity bulls as the overnight markets were firm and lead to strong rallies in almost every sector as the commodity index approached record levels. Energy and metals were strong on political and economic uncertainty as China reported inflation over 11% which was the highest in several years.
The stock market attempted and early rally but eventually failed. Volume was strong with 46,000 futures and 12,000 options as we continue to see the rolling from H'08 out as the spreads continue to widen.
Open interest came down over 10,000 contracts on Friday to reach 265k total this morning and the H'08 fell almost 20,000 contracts to reach just over 30k with 3 days still left to trade. Specs extended their long position to 25.5% from last weeks 24.5% and the sales and export report on Friday should show an above average number of new sales.
However, with commodities so strong today, it will be difficult to maintain this pace as we are reaching the top of the range. Grains closed off the highs but soybeans managed to take out the double top and technically is looking much stronger.
Technically, we remain confined to the familiar range we have been trading for several weeks. We erased all the negative technical resistance from Friday, but were unable to take out the recent highs set last week as we run into good scale up trade selling with Z'08 near 78 and K'08 near 72.00.
The market continues to move sideways as we get closer to H'08 expiration. RSI is back above 50, but certainly not showing signs of being overbought as we should continue to see the market trade in the current range until H'08 expires.
20240830145952.gif)
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "UBM China (Shanghai)")
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
