Trend Channels on Gold and Crude Oil as day traders prep for Jobless Claims

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Day Traders are seeing higher gold prices this morning after Ben Bernanke spoke about more stimulus for the US and investors seek shelter from inflation across the globe.

Crude Oil is also higher this morning, getting stubbornly-closer to that big round number of 100.00 again, after news this morning gave it strong support out of London.

We have a busy day of news this morning, starting out with three different events at 830am. Starting with Jobless Claims, then followed by Retail Sales, and Producer Price Index all at 830am

We then have Ben Bernanke speaking again at 10am today, as well as Business Inventories.

It will be important for us to pay close attention to volume this morning around 10am. On Wednesday we saw very fast price action at 10am but then it went very quiet around 1015am, so we will watch closely looking for consistent speed and personality when he is speaking.

We will also be looking for a late morning move this morning after Bernanke is done speaking and with the European close at 1130am, so we will keep an eye out for moves just before we head to lunch.

The US Dollar Index is trading lower this morning, inside a bear price channel, however, it is currently trading sideways. We always pay close attention to the current price action on the dollar, and its sideways at 730am

US Dollar Index

Gold futures are trading at all time highs this morning, showing a clear bullish trend channel on our 89range chart. We will use this strong trend to look for buying opportunities at support, and since these are the highs, we will be looking for signs of a price reversal using speed, momentum, and reading the tape.

Gold Futures

Crude Oil is trading at the highs of its major sideways range, inside of this bullish price channel and bull price wedge. You can see that lower recent highs create the price wedge inside this very wide sideways range. The bullish nature of this channel means looking for high % trades buying at support with new highs, or as price comes back down to support levels below us. Look to trade the sideways range first, buying the lows and selling the highs, avoiding the middles until we get some personality in the crude oil markets later this morning.