This does not feel like Spring Break to me as I need to be glued to the screens. The good news being that since I live in Fort Lauderdale, it may feel like Spring Break at the beaches this weekend.

A small victory today: we had a bearish engulfing candle in oil. As of this post prices are $2 off their intra-day highs. We were lucky enough to buy back our bottom legs this morning when oil was positive, and now clients own May $75 puts and should be able to profit on the trade as prices make their way closer to $77/76. $5 put spreads that were bought within the last few session stay put looking for lower trade.

Markets seem to be waiting for some type of catalyst to determine the direction of the next leg. It was an inside day in Crude oil as prices hover around $82/barrel. For new entries we still like the idea of $5 put spreads, but we would start looking at the June as opposed to May contract. If currently in the May, we would try to buy back the bottom leg; we have suggested for clients to buy back their $70 puts and that would leave them long the $75 puts. It was a disappointing day for longs in natural gas as yesterday could prove to be just a head fake. Clients remain long via April futures and June call spreads as prices were off 2.4% today.

As of this post, indices are at the high of the day; we think we are close to an inflection point but we’ve been wrong for the past two weeks. If the S&P closes above 1148, exit short futures at a loss. It's been a fourth consecutive down day in sugar but we are assuming yesterday’s low at 18.82 in May will serve as support. May cotton has lost 3.8% in the last 5 session and closed below the 20 day moving average for the first time since February 8th. We are expecting another 2-4 cents and will then be advising clients to lift shorts.

The stock market is up about 65% since the 3/9/09 low, but oil has actually outperformed stocks over this time period with a gain of 72.64%. Below we highlight the performance of ten major commodities over the last year. As shown, copper is up the most with a gain of 108%, while orange juice ranks second with a gain of 101%. Of the three main precious metals, platinum is up the most at 50%, followed by silver at +33.73%, and then gold at +22.16%. Even natural gas is up since the March 9th, 2009 low with a gain of 16%. Wheat and corn are the only commodities shown that are down over the last year. Corn is down 11%, while wheat is down 18.27%.

click to enlarge