Which Way Wednesday – Waiting on the Fed

Not much else matters until then and then we have Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday and nothing matters until then either so it makes sense that we are flat-lining, more or less this week, as we gather more data to see if we can justify these amazing gains for the month. 

We had a rough day shorting oil yesterday as it was a nickel and dime game as we crossed each .50 line but, while we won a few battles, oil won the day and is at $98 this morning in the Futures (/CL) where we're shorting it again into the inventory report.  The run-up in oil gave us the opportunity to take some March USO shorts in Member Chat for our $25,000 Portfolio as well as a new SCO, with an aggressive new play on the Feb $36/37 bull call spread for .40, which has a .60 upside (150%) in 16 days if oil drops back to about $96.

That's a speculative play but we put it in both of our $25,000 Portfolios and risked a virtual $800 on 20 contracts and, since the $36 calls are $1.15 (covered with the $37 calls sold short at .75), we can also roll out of the position before the $36s go below .60 – but more on that if it has to happen (hopefully not, as that would likely mean $100 oil).  Like a lot of things, yesterday's rally in oil has been propelled by a big dip in the Dollar, which bottomed out (we think) at 79.40 this morning.  

Rising oil prices – if true – also create a demand for Dollars as the same…