Well the first week of the New Year drawing to an end it is time for some light weekend reading. The start of the year has seen oil crack the US$100 mark if but briefly. Nearly every media outlet in Australia jumped on the band wagon spreading fear that the price increase for the February delivery light sweet crude contracts would continue unabated. Here are some of the headlines:

“Oil price surge signals financial pain”

“Fears petrol could hit $1.50 [per litre in Australia]”

“Oil price hike sign of things to come”

“Asian shares down after oil hits $100″

“Record oil price deepens US woes”

It is amazing the psychological effect the passing of the US$100 mark has had, it will be interesting to see if all the hype is warranted. The chart below shows the passing of the US$100 mark for the February delivery light sweet crude contracts.

Trainee Traders Weekend reading list:

Keeping with a look at the psychology of trading I suggest you take a look at TraderFeed blog. Usually I would post a series of different articles from various sites. However I think that you could spend the whole weekend reading the TraderFeed blog. The author of this blog is Brett Steenbarger the author of:

and

TraderFeed has hundreds of very useful articles with 703 posts published on his blog in 2007, no matter what level of trader you are you this blog will help improve your trading skills. Some articles that I liked were:

• Market Myopia
• Finding Your Voice as a Trader
• What Every Short-Term Trader Should Know
• So You Want To Trade For A Living
• How Do You Know You Have A Trading Edge?-
• Trading Forex (Currency) Markets With An Edge
• 2007 Stock Market Returns by Day of Week

Happy reading.