Positive Sales and Demand Data boosts RBOB
Early morning trading pushed all pits higher as news spread of Chinese Crude imports jumping 6%. With a Market desperately looking for direction, the slightest potential shift in sentiment can have large scale implications. As the morning moved on, and gasoline demand numbers were reported as an increase of 1.1% over last week, the buyers took early control and never looked back. Very similar to what happens when you score 4 goals and 6 minutes, a la Bruin nation, it makes for an early day. The empty netter was a retail sales figure that showed the losses were better than expected only showing a .2% decrease while a .3% decrease was anticipated. Remember, it is all about expectations. So it will be interesting to see how Wednesday plays out as most expect for builds across the board with the DOE numbers. While we are still some 22 cents off the high seen back in early April, we are only 27 cents off the low in early May. Again this range of 2.85 to 3.35 on Heat while vast appears to be the new normal. A very hard close pushed values higher with about 10 minutes left in the session. HEAT was teetering on even ground only to end up .02 to $3.1258, RBOB soared .0678 to $3.0646 and Crude added $2.07 to $99.37, still under the mythical line in the sand of $100 a barrel.