A simple sell strategy for Heating OilWith price and “commodity premiums” that we track showing signs of a structural shift, we think these represents potential tradeable set-up in the mid to long term as supply and demand finds some way to normalization after the pandemic & war shocks over the past 2 years. Hence, we think commodities will continue to be where the actions at.
With winter just about over, we thought it would be perfect time to look at the ‘talk’ of pre-winter, Heating Oil.
After a staggering 600% run-up from the depths of 2020 to the peak pre-winter last year, Heating Oil might just be on the opposite journey now.
On a weekly timeframe, Heating oil has decisively broken the uptrend established since 2020 and now sits on the support level for the 2011-2014 period of 2.75.
Zooming closer on the RSI, the current level proves to be a pivotal point for heating oil’s trend, as each time the RSI crosses below the 40-level, it is followed by an accelerated move lower. In fact, taking a short position every time the RSI crosses below the 40-level would have netted an average of 27%, if you manage to catch the bottom!
Even if you can’t catch the bottom, following the strategy, where we build a short position in heating oil when RSI crosses below 40, and hold it until RSI crosses back above 40, would still make a respectable 18.3% average return.
On a shorter timeframe, Heating Oil seems to be trading within a descending channel, with the trend pointing lower.
Another thing we like to look at is the relationship/premium between Heating Oil and Crude Oil. However, as the two types of contracts are quoted differently, we have some work to do to rebase the prices into a comparable format. Given that Heating Oil is quoted in US Dollars and Cents per gallon, while Crude Oil is quoted as US Dollars and Cents per barrel, we can convert Heating Oil to be denominated in barrels.
1 barrel equals to roughly 42 gallons, therefore, we can simply multiply Heating Oil price per gallon by 42 to get its price per Barrel. Given Heating Oil is 2.7505 USD per gallon, this works out to be roughly 115.52 USD per barrel.
This allows us to see the relationship between Heating Oil and Crude oil. The former is trading at a premium to latter.
Over the past winter the Heating Oil premium reached it’s all time high, toping out close to 100 USD per barrel more than Crude Oil. With Spring now in sight, it appears a new season has dawned upon this premium, with the Heating Oil - Crude Oil premium now falling below the previous highs in 2011-2012. Should this continue, then we can expect the price gap between the 2 types of oil to close, with Heating Oil being the likely culprit to drive it lower.
The general downward trend in current Heating Oil prices, falling Heating Oil premiums and historical RSI-based sell trigger, all point towards a potentially lower Heating Oil.
We would consider setting up the trade in the following 2 ways to express our view:
1) Wait for the RSI to cross below 40 and sell, setting the take-profit based on the RSI crossing back above 40 again to close the position. Each 0.0001-point move in Heating Oil Futures Contract is $4.20 USD
2) Trade the spread between Heating Oil and Crude Oil by taking a short position in the CME Heating Oil Futures Contract and a long position in the CME Crude Oil Futures Contract. Given that 1 Heating Oil Contract is for 42,000 gallons, which is equivalent to 1000 barrels, we can Short 1 Heating Oil and Long 1 Crude Oil to form the spread, in order to match the position size of the contracts.
The charts above were generated using CME’s Real-Time data available on TradingView. Inspirante Trading Solutions is subscribed to both TradingView Premium and CME Real-time Market Data which allows us to identify trading set-ups in real-time and express our market opinions. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com
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Reference:
www.cmegroup.com
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