Is oil going up or down? It does not matter.

UCO is trading close to the $10 strike price. Below are 10 straddles for June, which allow an investor to profit either direction, as long as the stock moves the required amount..

A move of about 10% will make the position profitable. Calculated with StraddlesCalc.

Options are dangerous and may cause 100% loss. Please do your own due diligence!

Stock Diversification Through Commodity ETFs

With the end of the month we calculated the correlations of all commodity ETFs on the market. Correlations are extremely important for proper investment diversification. Stocks that are highly correlated, those whose  correlation values close to +1 or -1, do not provide sector diversification

Here are the values:

Please click to enlarge image.

Some of the best uncorrelated pair of commodity ETFs include:

• JO and AGF, DAG, GRN, GRU, JJA, JJT, SBG, UAG
• NIB and JJS, JO
• UBC and JS

BP oil leak and live oil ETFs

BP has certainly taken a beating lately. This video feed is live at the site of the leak:



We track all oil ETFs live as well at our Live Tracking site.

Top 40 ETFs to buy in the short term

These are the top 40 most oversold ETFs on the market, for the short term. They are ordered by RSI (relative strength index) daily values.

Note the top two ETFs are USO, and UCO, our two favorite ETFs for trading oil.

Being oversold does not mean they can't be even more oversold, but if there is a bounce, these are the ones with the best prospects as a group.

Euro stabilizes but FXE ETF still shows strong sell signal

The Euro has stabilized overnight, although European markets are in deep negative territory and the US futures are bleak today.

FXE is the most popular ETF that tracks the Euro. It still shows a very strong perfect sell (-100) sell signal:

The score is shown on the chart itself (tool by INO, access risk-free trial here). Fibonacci retracement levels are also shown, current values are way past them.

The Euro overnight:

Investing in Rhodium

Open your eyes, what's in the jar?

Rhodium is a precious metal from the platinum essential to the automobile industry. It comes mostly from South Africa and Russia.

Jon Nadler, senior Analyst at Kitco, was interviewed on BNN about Rhodium, a precious metal that is easily airborne, stick to clothing, and is traded in sealed containers!

Interestingly, the also discusses that gold is overpriced (GLD), and gold should drop to between $680 and 800. Watch interview.

Track precious metals etfs live here.

PLTM is an ETF that has at least 90% of total assets in common stocks that comprise the ISE Global Platinum Index, "currently containing 25 companies that provide a benchmark for investors interested in tracking public companies that are active in Platinum Group Metals mining based on revenue analysis of those companies. Platinum group metals include Platinum, Palladium, Osmium, Iridium, Ruthenium and Rhodium. Component securities must be actively engaged in some aspect of the industry such as mining, refining or exploration"

Profitting from the US Dollar moving up or down

Currencies continue to be extremely volatile with the chaotic situation in Greece and Europe in general. There are many ways to play the USD. Through the Euro, through gold, or through direct ETFs such as UUP.

Below are straddles for UUP, for expiry in May and June. These allow an investor to profit if UUP moves up or down, as long as it moves the necessary amount.

The positions were calculated with the free StraddlesCalc tool, which shows the maximum moves required. For May (2 weeks), they are about 2.7%, and for June they are about 4%, at most.

Diversifying investments through commodity ETFs and correlations

As April ends, the table below shows the correlations aong all commodity ETFs on the market. These correlations are essential for proper diversification of investments.

(please click on image to enlarge)

For diversification, one would avoid the red and green pairs, which indicate high correlations. The pairs that have very low correlation are shown in bold font. Some of the best pairs are:

• UAG and GRN
• RJZ and DBA
• FUE and BAL
• PWND and COQ, DBA, GCC, GRU, JJA
• UAG and LD
• UCD and SGG