US crude down more than $2 a barrel

try $3.8 drop in 4mins

WTF APPENED THERE?
Strategic release? high frequency screw up?

why droping?

why down

Probably a dump by a big fund

oil traders arrested while at their screens in London - they were literally pulled away from their screens mid-trade , and so were no longer able to prop up the price

Crazy moves on CL

hey who the f..k pierced my oil balloon???? paging bernank..... ben are u there? i need help!!!

oil futures expire today

yup. profit takers

but a 500pips drop on profit taking is somehow weird, probably the SPR (strategic petroleum reserves) release rumor is true

ha - I almost went long right there a 98.59 but decided not to at last minute/second ..... got lucky as that would have been U G L Y. Woulda been the last guy buying by the looks of it. Whew!

Everything is overbought anyhow. Just needed a push. my 4h charts are pegged on most instruments

what will be the effect on GOLD ?

Wow Gold setting up nicely for the entry up - I really need to top up my longs - been waiting for this drop. Wish the Euro would come lower too soon enough and of course good old AUD is coming down nicely - so all in all we should be see a lot more highs soon. But oil - don't know anything about it - but curious what is up with it?

We shall see. You are pretty Long positioned I suppose :-)

long @99.30, i just want to shoot my screen

Well someone went to a lot of trouble to set up that oil trade! The beauty about manipulating these markets is that the SEC can do nothing about it because the trades are now global and you'll find that this particular trade originated overseas afar from the outstretched arms of the SEC. It takes really positive news to drop oil $4.16 in 4 minutes flat and only a few news items are possibly positive....they might be: A) Iran and Israel have suddenly announced they're best buddies...nope that can't be it; B) cold-fusion just got solved...doubt it!!; C.) release of Strategic Oil Reserves...Ok..most likely answer but actually when you look up the definition of the word "meaningless" in the dictionary you see "Strategic Oil Reserve" since the Dept of Energy has admitted that they can't distribute more than 50 thousand barrels per day because of inadequate pipeline facilities versus the daily consumption rate total of the US at 10 million barrels per day. So, like I said someone took a great deal of trouble to set that trade up.

its an stop loss eater for gold; but i think it will be on level terms in less than 24 hours

BNN just reported a large short in brent futures spilled over to oil...

what futures contract expires today? not brent, nymex (or wti) that I know of, which are all down. maybe electric car revolution? nope izza dem robots again.

Traders said the price action looked like an algorithmic trade gone bad due to the speed and the volume of the selling.ICE is the home of the Brent crude oil contract in London.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-cme-group-says-no-technical-issues-in-crude-oil-selloff-20120917,0,3697639.story

how is that one of may brokers says October contract will end today, 17 Sept but another one says it will end on 19 Sept?

SM usually doesn't take large positions like that... too high of transaction cost. Only way it happens is if they are forced to.. ie: going after a expiry level where they will have to pay up... transaction cost gets negated by taking retail stops if there are enough.

Chances are if it gave you enough time to write this post it probably isn't a good idea to get in. Remember QE was just announced we don't yet know if it was buy the rumour sell the news yet.

look at the daily chart for light crude!!
what do you expect after a DOJI like that ))

me go long wti if H1 indicator confirms, at 95.17, t/p 98.49, s/l up to our risk tolerance. not intended as advice, just how I read the chart, lows being rejected on H1, but watch expiry, only for fast traders

Yes, cold fusion just got solved !!

maybe this is what happened: ICE brent futures contract expired last week 13 september '12, a big buyer forgot to rollover the contract and had to take physical delivery. then he found out how much it costs to rent or buy oil tankers, so he dumped the whole lot back on the market. this is only speculative theory.

Rumour of the US releasing some of its strategic oil reserve is high impact breaking news. (This seems to be the consensus explanation - note that the rumour had no substance and was promptly quashed.)

Posting this without any insight is the equivalent of posting "first" in a YouTube comment and wastes the time of every serious trader affected by this move who needed an immediate answer in order to react appropriately.

(Yes, it's 12 hours later, but at the time I was too busy looking for an explanation to post my annoyance at this so-called "high impact" "breaking news" item.)

Meanwhile - my cubic regression model indicates just a 1% chance of further upside in the Euro on the daily - in response I am closing all longs across all my accounts and watching for definitive signs of a move down. Gold and AUD remain bullish still by my model and I shall maintain current positions as such in those instruments.

I shorted on price action just before drop..being AT SUPPLY ,5m chart just before at 01:00am EAST ( being bedtime) read raw price data .. if traders want to learn ... still in and riding to demand zone