Weekly futures chart: Trend in oil prices

Taking a gander at the longer-term trend in crude oil prices via this Finviz weekly futures chart.

You can plainly see the bull move of 2007-2008 and the ensuing correction (plunge) from $140 that followed here. Then we see the bottoming process and rally off the early 2009 lows, when crude oil traded near $30 a barrel. The uptrend of the past two years has taken us back above $100 a barrel.

You'll also notice the COT (commitment of traders report) data below the price chart. It seems the commercial hedgers are the savvy players in the oil market. Their relatively infrequent net long exposure seems to occur near cyclical bottoms in crude oil prices. Of course, their net short positions tend to increase as the price of oil trends higher.

Perhaps some of our commodity-savvy readers can fill us in on any useful ways to read & use the COT data. If you have some helpful insights, please add them in the comments.

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Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety . My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes . Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes 2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

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Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

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