Rick's Picks is published round-the-clock. My trading recommendations and forecasts are based on proprietary technical methods that took more than ten years to develop and hone.
If you like what you see, you can sign up instantly.
Specific trading recommendations are currently in effect for the following stocks & issues:
The following issues have received coverage
Free Commentary
Do Oil, Gold
Sniff a War?
published May 12
Unless your were trading oil futures on Friday, the markets might have seemed pretty dull. A barrel priced for June delivery hit a new record high of 126.27, and we shudder to think what that might mean at the pump. So, what has been driving crude’s spectacular rise?Until a few weeks ago, there was a simple answer to that question: the dollar’s decline.Oil producers and traders were simply repricing fuel to compensate for the dollar’s shrinking purchasing power. However, since mid-March, both oil and the dollar have been moving higher, with the dollar gaining about 5% during that time, oil about 25%.
The latter really began to take off a week ago, and it would now appear that the supposed civil war in Lebanon is the reason. We say “supposed” because that’s the way the news media have characterized it – as an escalating battle between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah militiamen backed by Iran and Syria. But while Hezbollah has been trying to oust the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora for18 months, the current, major escalation of violence holds serious implications for the entire region.
