March corn closed lower by $.15. Open interest increased by 11, 181 and volume was 323, 517 contracts.Market action negative.
March wheat also had negative price and open interest action and closed 20 3/4 cents lower. Volume was 81, 647 contracts and open interest increased by 4,388 contracts. This this is the first day in quite a while that wheat has shown negative price action and negative open interest action.
March sugar closed 1.29 cents lower. Volume was 122,883 contracts and open interest increased by 2,178. Sugar showed good price in open interest action on January 3 and has shown negative price an open interest on January 5. This is the market that we will be watching for a while.
February crude oil closed down 1.41 on volume of 545, 420. Open interest increased by 13,082. For the last 12 trading sessions open interest has increased 10 of those days. It appears that the market is going to break sharply one way or the other. Caution is warranted.
February gold closed higher by $7.40. Volume was 185,186 an open interest declined by 841 contracts. In the last two days gold is $20.00 higher but open interest has declined by a total of 2,895 contracts which almost negates the 4,104 contract increase on January 3 when gold closed $33.70 higher. Stand aside for now.
March silver close $.20 higher on volume of 41, 166 contracts and open interest increased by 783 contracts. For the past two days price an open interest action has been positive for silver. Stand aside for now.
March euro closed 1.52 lower on volume of 266, 566 contracts. Open interest increased by 5,241 indicating that the bears are still very much in control of this market.
March S&P E mini was unchanged for the day. Volume was the highest since December 21, 2011 and on that day the market was unchanged as well. Open interest increased by 19,345 contracts which indicates that a lackluster battle between the longs and shorts took place. In my view the most revealing price action occurred on January 4 when open interest declined by 97,684 contracts on a narrow range day on low volume. The market looks overextended and caution is warranted for anyone long.
