CL Redux

Oil tops $103 as gasoline futures climb

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/crude-oil-futures-sag-after-rebound-2011-05-10?dist=countdown

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures traded mostly higher Tuesday, topping $103 a barrel
-<b> as gasoline futures climbed on growing concerns that flooding along the Mississippi River will hurt refinery operations. </b>

But trading in the oil market was volatile, with prices also pressured by
- news that CME Group will hike margin requirements for a wide variety of crude-oil contracts
- and by a lower 2011 global demand forecast from the U.S. Energy Department.



“Price volatility is high in the wake of oil’s recent slide lower,” said Jason Schenker, president and chief economist at Prestige Economics LLC. “Although a trend higher is going to resume, the market is likely to remain choppy in the immediate term.”

Crude for June delivery CLM11 +0.97% was lately up 45 cents to $103 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Oil futures traded as high as $103.66 and as low as $100.12 Tuesday after tacking on 5.5% during Monday’s regular session. They had fallen sharply in tandem with other commodities last week.

“So much for the ‘increased margins leading to long-liquidation’ battle cry,” said Darin Newsom, a senior analyst at Telvent DTN. The “market still seems to be feeling its way around. Gasoline’s seeing strong commercial buying, pulling crude oil higher.”


In its short-term energy outlook report Tuesday,
- the Energy Information Administration said retail gasoline prices are likely to average $3.81 during the summer driving season, up from $2.76 last summer but 5 cents lower than the agency’s prediction last month.

- The EIA also lowered its forecast on total world oil consumption. It said consumption will grow by 1.4 million barrels a day in 2011, 100,000 barrels a day below last month’s report. Read the EIA report.


- “Higher gasoline prices tend to pull oil up ... especially with gasoline stocks 9% lower than last year,” said James Williams, an economist at WTRG Economics.

“We expect gasoline stocks to start improving with more refineries back online from maintenance, but this time of year, the market seems to think there won’t be enough gasoline for summer,” he said.

Meanwhile, “the CME raising margin requirements may signal that the rebound [in oil] may be at risk,” said Phil Flynn, a vice president at PFG Best.


----

The change to margin requirements were effective Tuesday, the CME said in a press release. Under the changes,
- the requirement for a new position in benchmark Nymex crude contracts rises to $8,438 from $6,750 previously.
- The maintenance margin for benchmark Nymex crude rose to $6,250 from $5,000.
 
Oil rises on flood threat to U.S. refiners, China

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/10/us-markets-oil-idUSL3E7G601S20110510

Oil rose on Tuesday, supported
- by concerns that flooding could hit the U.S. Gulf Coast refining hub
- and after data showed strong Chinese crude imports for April.

While no refineries had been forced to cut operations yet, rising waters along the Mississippi threatened to disrupt plants in Louisiana, including the second largest U.S.refinery, in the next two weeks.

<b>Gasoline futures led oil market gains, with the flood threat adding to concerns about 11 straight weeks of inventory declines as the United States gears up for the peak summer holiday period. </b>

Traders were awaiting the release of U.S. inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute later on Tuesday, expected to show another small drawdown in gasoline inventories and an increase in crude stockpiles.

Brent rose $1.73 to end at $117.63 a barrel. U.S. crude settled up $1.33 at $103.88 a barrel as U.S. gasoline futures jumped 3 percent.

Trade volumes, which surged last week as prices tumbled $16 a barrel, remained strong with Brent volumes were nearly 60 percent over the 30-day moving average in mid-afternoon trade New York and U.S. crude 14 percent above that average.

Volume has remained high as traders remain cautious and watch every market turn after last week's sell-off and the 6 percent rebound on Monday, analysts said.

<b>
"Crude futures are stronger today as the flooding in Mississippi River has raised worries about refinery operations in that region," said Mark Waggoner, president of Excel Futures in Bend, Oregon.

"The other bullish influence today is the strong trade data from China, which seems to have overcome, at least for the moment, concerns about any slowdown in its economy."
</b>
CHINA, MARGINS

Chinese crude oil imports in April were the third highest on record, on a daily basis, at 5.24 million barrels of crude oil per day (bpd), up 1.7 percent on the year, official customs data showed on Tuesday.

Oil product imports in the No. 2 oil consumer fell by 17 percent drop, however, as smaller refineries cut runs to cope with high oil prices, diminishing demand for feedstocks.

News that the CME Group Inc (CME.O) raised margins on U.S. crude oil futures for a fourth time since February in an effort to tackle rising volatility weighed on prices in early trade.

"Having high margin requirements makes it more difficult for speculative traders to enter the market, so naturally that will cause less speculative activity in oil markets," said Ben Westmore, commodity economist at National Australia Bank.
 
Hot commodity funds hit by sell-off
Clive Capital lost almost 9% last week, but other funds also

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hot-commodity-funds-hit-by-sell-off-2011-05-09?dist=afterbell

1/ Clive Capital, <b>one of the world’s largest commodities hedge funds </b> run by former Moore Capital trader Chris Levett,
- was down 8.85% in the first week of May, mainly because of the drop in energy prices.

“Yesterday’s moves in crude oil (both Brent and WTI were down 9.4 and 9.3% respectively) were extraordinary given that there was no specific fundamental news that was negative for oil,” Richard Boland, chief operating officer of Clive Capital, wrote in a Friday letter to investors.

”Economic data was soft early in the week, though micro news for oil continued to be bullish,” he added. “Indeed there was news out earlier in the week of further supply disruptions in Yemen and a substantial technical supply outage in the UAE.”

Commodity hedge funds have raised more money in recent quarters as investors look for a way to hedge potential inflation, while tapping into demand from developing countries.

2/ Commodity trading advisors, or CTAs, a type of fund that trades futures,
- <b>saw $6 billion in net inflows in March, the fourth straight inflow as well as the 12th in 13 months, </b>
according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research.


3/ CTAs in mutual fund form have also been sprouting up recently. Morningstar MORN +1.34% tracks the performance of more than ten of these types of funds. It also runs the Morningstar Long Short Commodity index, which uses a momentum-based computer model to decide which commodities to buy and sell each month.

Such products have ridden the commodity bull market, but they were hit by last week’s sell-off.

“Energy and precious metals were in serious over-bought territory,” said Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge. “All you needed was an excuse to sell off.”
 
<< we have nice little sell off to 103.30 level , seems this API and Margin Increase starts now when NYMEX opens are pressing CL down
>>

May 10, 2011, 4:39 p.m. EDT
API shows oil inventories up nearly 3 mln barrels

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ap...-3-mln-barrels-2011-05-10?link=MW_latest_news


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- API released numbers
- Crude-oil inventories rose 2.9 million barrels
- gasoline stockpiles declining 1.8 million barrels,
- distillates rising 582,000 barrels

on the week ended May 6, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said late Tuesday.

The report came ahead of official figures by the Energy Information Administration due at 10:30 Eastern on Wednesday.

Analysts polled by Platts expect the EIA to
- show an increase of 1.6 million barrels in crude stockpiles,
- a decline of 300,000 barrels for gasoline inventories,
- and an increase of 300,000 barrels for distillates inventories.
 
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