January 21, 2022 - (Gold Market Wire) - Crude Oil got within a hair's-breadth of $90 a barrel on Brent, and promptly backed off. A market getting ahead of itself is the judicious view, and we'd have to agree. What a run it has been. But nothing moves up in a straight line, not even when thoughts of war abound. Still, our horizontal marker is the first one to focus on.

The action this week has been all about hanging on to the horizontal marker in our chart at $86.41 and trying to stay in the channel. So far we've managed one out of the two. Needless to say, the close is going to be an interesting one, but as usual, we are compelled to ask - who exactly wants to be flat or short going into a weekend, when Russia could move into Ukraine at a moments notice. Then you wake up on Monday and Crude Oil is several dollars higher. Not an enticing thought - at all.

Balanced against that is, of course, a market that is really moving to fast for its own good. In theory that could make you a covered call writer (in a ratio of less than 1) somewhere above, say, $100. Or you could throw capital at puts (less interesting). Needless to say, it's a tough balance. Of course, the more reasoned play would be to take 1/3 of our length off the table, and look to buy back cheaper. If not you'll probably be holding this for a lot longer as we take off.

Green politics seem a suicide mission - and suicide is where the Western world appears to be most comfortable, so, as we move into a series of freezing winters, sure - let's just shut down all of our energy producing capacity, especially in, Europe and that will motivate us to 'Go Green" - while China and India do whatever they feel like. This is beyond a fool's errand. The West has lost its mind. And it won't be coming back anytime soon.