"Errel" {Oil}

The title is a play on pronunciation.  I grew up in central Indiana, hard next to the Ohio state border.  I mean that literally.  My hometown of Union City was bisected by the Indiana/Ohio State lines.  Ohio was three blocks east of my house or about a third of a mile.  Many people back in the day, especially older folks, pronounced "oil" with something that sounded like "errel".  

But enough of the trivia.  Business Insider in a column today notes that crude oil prices are back above $60 a barrel for the first time since December.  Here's a chart of the oil futures from them with my money flow additions.

Chart is from FINVIZ.com.

I'd note that oil is currently at resistance and a bit overbought by our work so probability suggests that a little back in forth price action might be in the offing for awhile.  I'd also note that the time to buy oil and oil service stocks was back at the end of the year and during the first quarter.  Many of these have performed very well in 2015.  In fact the energy sector of the market has so far outperformed the overall S&P 500 in 2015 after getting crushed last year.

Expect to see the prices at the gas pump start to expand, perhaps dramatically, if this trend continues.  Gas in Chicago is already from my estimate about 20 cents higher than it was in the dead of winter.  Some of that up till now is likely the switch to a summer blend of gasoline around here that we are told is more expensive to produce.  If that continues though expect to see some of the energy related savings that economist have talked about start to disappear.

*Long ETFs related to energy and oil service in client and personal accounts.  Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  Please note that these positions can change at any time without notice.

Link:  Business Insider.com:  "Crude Oil Spike".