Here’s the monthly chart of crude oil going back about a dozen years. Yes, it’s up over 13 times off its 1998 low (that’s 32% annually for the last decade, the power of compounding, yow!) and recently started poking out of the regression channel (>2 SD). I expect it to go sideways for awhile at least after hitting the “magic” $150/barrel mark.

When crude broke out of the long sideways consolidation I didn’t think it would be an “easy” breakout and would dip back into the range to mess with the short-term traders, but I was wrong.

I know that posting to the blog has been a little doggy recently (neglect is on my mind), so in my defense (continuing the Janet Jackson What-Have-You-Done-For-Me-Lately theme) readers should kindly recall that I guessed that Earl would break out of the range to the upside and warned y’all to resist the temptation to countertrend trade black gold.