Below is an item from The Guardian that is going to amuse you. You’re probably aware that a strike in Venezuela has significantly curtailed oil shipments to the U.S. -- by about 1.5 million barrels per day. But guess who is making up for the shortfall:

"Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq. Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela. After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve.

"But ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially, US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe and Asia to save the American oil

infrastructure. The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN's oil for food programme.

"But for opponents of war, it shows the unspoken aim of military action in Iraq, which has the world's second largest proven reserves - some 112 billion barrels, and at least another 100bn of unproven reserves, according to the US Department of Energy. Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract - less than $1 per barrel, compared with $6 a barrel in Russia. Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields south of Basra produce prized 'sweet crudes' that are simpler to refine."

Perhaps if we simply asked the Iraqis nicely… Anyway, with enemies like that, who needs friends?

If you haven’t yet seen the movie Gangs of New York, I recommend it highly. Like numerous other films directed by Martin Scorsese, it draws its power from the bravura performance of a single actor – here the always remarkable Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis plays Bill Cutting, aka "The Butcher," a real-life Tammany Hall "Nativist" whose cruelty, ruthlessness and hatefulness is destined to set a new standard for movie villains. The London-born Day-Lewis is one of the finest actors of this generation or any other, and he puts his remarkable talents and imagination to work here by engaging us with an evil-eyed squint and a New York accent that sounds like third-generation Flatbush by way of lower-class London. Even his voice is in an unfamiliar register – ever-so-slightly higher and nasal than usual, so that it literally chills us when he speaks. Not to take anything away from the other great actors who will be nominated for Oscars this year, but Day-Lewis’s performance was so powerful that even Michael Caine and Jack Nicholson are apt to get shut out. Nicholson was superb in "About Schmidt," but in 50 years, when his Schmidt is all but forgotten, Day-Lewis’ Bill Cutting will be recalled by movie-lovers as vividly as Charles Laughton’s "Captain Bly."

[The + symbol means we have an open position,

while $ means there is actionable advice.]

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Gold Futures

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FEB GOLD (368.30): Our minimum projection is still to 378.10, but if that price is exceeded by more than a couple of ticks we’d expect the short-term bull cycle to continue up to at least 382.90. The move to these targets will be in the booster stage once the futures have traded above 372.80, a hidden pivot, intraday.

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GoldCorp (NYSE:GG) : Quote - Options - News - Profile - Message Board - Website

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+ GG (12.20): We hold 200 shares for an average 4.65, and no changes are contemplated. When the stock closes above 13.77, or trades more than six cents above that price intraday, we should assume it's bound for a longstanding target at 15.72.

               

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 DURBAN DEEP (NasdaqSC:DROOY) : Quote - News - Profile - Message Board - Website

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$ + DROOY (4.00): We hold 400 shares for an average 4.66 and are bidding 3.82 for 200 more, day order. 

                 

 

DJIA (8053.81): We’re in that tiresome loop again where the market zigs meaninglessly each day while my forecasts zag. Be that as it may, stochastic indicators for the daily chart are rolling up steeply from oversold extremes, and that will make us more reluctant than usual to get short. Since upside targets are effectively useless Fibonaccis (useless, because every trader and his mother is watching the same levels) I’ll just say "mildly bullish" and leave it at that.

E-Mini S&Ps (857.00): We’ll go with the flow by suggesting an 899.25 target for the next few days. That’s a Fibonacci-based level and therefore of little value to us for trading purposes. (It can still be traded, of course, but you’ll have to guess for yourselves how far above that number the bottom-fishing by a thousand others is likely to commence.)

MAR 10-YEAR NOTE (114.045): The futures would need to close above 114.310 to suggest that a test of the important January 31 peak at 115.175 is likely.

OEX (432.57): An garden-variety bear rally this week should be able to reach 456.16, equivalent to a 0.618 retracement of the decline from mid-January’s high. Wake me when we get there – assuming we get there at all -- so we can figure out how to get short.

QQQ (24.44): The cubes are struggling to hold their ground at levels where several important bottoms were made over the last few months. With other issues we track seemingly ready to rally, we’ll de-emphasize a bearish, 22.96 target given here earlier and put into play a Fib-based objective above – 26.17, a Fibo level. It holds no special opportunities for us.

MAR NASDAQ 100 (984.50): Stochastic influences are turning bullish, but it would take a close today of 1014.50 or higher for the effect to kick in with some force.