After three very strong trading days with wide ranges and good volume, we slipped back into a quiet day and may be setting up for a new sideways trading range. There seems to be good support scale down under 69 and this will continue to be tested.
However, there is also good scale up selling above 70 cents so the range will be very tight in the short term. Business has slowed down a little as we have seen open interest come down heavily the last two days. Volume was under 10,000 in futures and options today as there looks to be mostly hedge lifting taking place and not any new shorts like we suspected.
The USD made a 6 month high today, but there seems to be plenty more bad news coming out of the financial sector which should keep the stock market in check and may allow the commodity hedge funds to stop liquidating and even possibly put some money back in after 20% sell offs in several sectors.
Technicals continue to look negative in the short term, but after the limit up bounce yesterday, it is obvious that the fundamental picture is looking better and good size demand was uncovered at these price levels. Along with a hot dry August left to grow the Northern hem crop, there is a good chance the market will continue to find support under 69 cents.
If that is the case and we can hold that area on a few more tests, we should try and climb back and test the upper end of the range at 72 cents scale up. However, if the commodity complex continues to slide lower, Z'08 will have trouble sustaining rallies and should move lower into expiration.
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.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.")
