Brigham Exploration Company (BEXP) announced results for one of its wells in the Bakken Shale today, prompting a 7% gain in its share price and securing a spot on the Zacks #1 Rank Top Performers List.

< ?DART(15);?> In addition to this company-specific news, BEXP is also getting a hand from an improving outlook for oil stocks as oil prices have finally broken out of its trading range.

Brigham Exploration is an independent exploration, development and production company that utilizes advanced exploration, drilling and completion technologies to systematically explore for, develop and produce domestic onshore oil and natural gas reserves.

It's 1 of 3 companies from the Oil-U.S. Exploration & Production industry on today's Zacks #1 Rank List, which includes 215 stocks in total. The other 2 names are Linn Energy, LLC (LINE) and Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP).

Earnings estimates

...

The September edition of Donald Coxe’s Basic Points research report (subtitled “Dem Blues”) has just been published. His investment recommendations, as summarized in this document, are listed in the paragraphs below, but I do recommend you also read the full report at the bottom of the post. (Also note that Donald’s weekly webcasts can be accessed from the sidebar of the Investment Postcards site.)

1. Upgrade equity portfolios to reduce endogenous risk. Trade upward in quality, and, in balanced accounts, increase bond exposure. There is, at present, too much froth for comfort. After the grandest recession /recovery stock market rally on record, this is hardly a good time to commit new money into equities.

2. Emphasize Canadian stocks in North American portfolios. Canada has the best banks, and the best range of commodity-oriented stocks. And it has the best North American currency.

3. Continue to overweight commodity-oriented

...

World stocks slid on Wednesday after a mixed report on U.S. durable goods orders reignited doubts about economic recovery while oil prices fell on news of rising U.S. crude stockpiles.

The U.S. dollar gained, retracing the week’s losses, as the durables goods report for July eroded risk appetite and prompted investors to seek shelter in the safe-haven greenback.

Orders for long-lasting manufactured goods registered the biggest advance since July 2007, but excluding transportation goods, orders for durables were slightly below expectations.

Slippage among global stocks that climbed to 10-month highs this week boosted money flows into less risky assets, such as European government bonds, which also gained from some modest month-end buying, traders said.

Economic data in Europe showed further signs of recovery, as did a report showing U.S. new home sales jumped in July to their fastest pace in 10 months.

But a key measure of U.S. business demand — nondefense capital goods, excluding

...

Since the stock market bottomed out in March, the Nasdaq 100 index has led the way forward, with a 55% rally, with the Dow and S&P 500 not far behind.

As the standout index (based on a percentage retracement off the March lows), the Nasdaq 100 is the most important one to focus on here. The weekly chart below reveals that it’s clawed back around 50% of its losses since late 2007.

Correction Coming

The late 2007 sell-off and subsequent rally looks like a classic 5-wave Elliott Wave Theory move, with the current rally perhaps being the fourth wave of a 5-wave downside move.

If that’s the case, the Nasdaq 100 shouldn’t close much above the trendline before the fifth wave to the downside begins. At this point, with all

...

“Super trader” Jeff Clark says oil stocks are oversold right now. Writing in today’s Growth Stock Wire, Jeff says the bullish percent indicator for the oil sector, BPENER (below), is flashing a buy signal for oil stocks.

This from Jeff:

BPENER is a momentum-based indicator that generates buy and sell signals based on oversold and overbought conditions. The oil sector is overbought when BPENER rallies above 70 and then turns lower. The four most recent sell signals are marked with red circles. Each signal was profitable for anyone taking a short position on the oil sector.The oil sector is oversold whenever BPENER drops below 20. It generates a buy signal (the blue circles) when it turns higher from oversold levels. The last time we got a buy signal from this indicator, back in March, my Advanced Income subscribers took on three trades. Each of them generated at least a 25% ...

Oil rose to $70 a barrel on Monday after Nigeria’s main militant group said it attacked a Royal Dutch Shell oil platform, outweighing a fairly bearish report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said its fighters struck the Shell Forcados platform in the Delta state at about 0230 GMT.

There was no immediate independent confirmation but Shell said it shut in some oil production at its western operations in the Delta while it investigated reports of attacks.

U.S. crude for August delivery rose to a high of $70.06 per barrel, up 90 cents, before slipping back slightly to $69.75 by 1230 GMT.

London Brent crude was up 60 cents at $69.52.

“The Nigerian supply disruptions brought in some buying,” said Christopher Bellew, broker at Bache Commodities in London.

On Friday, four militant Nigerian factions said they would accept in principle an amnesty offer from President Umaru Yar’Adua, raising hopes

...

Asian markets extended losses Tuesday as commodities took a beating and worried investors looked for fresh signs of an economic recovery.  Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average declined 2.9%, its worst one-day percentage loss in more than two months, even as Bank of Japan noted that "Japan's economic conditions, after deteriorating significantly, have begun to stop worsening."  The bank left its overnight lending rate unchanged at 0.1%.  Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.8% and South Korea's Kospi fell 1%.  China's Shanghai Composite Index however outperformed regional markets and declined 0.5%.

Dollar prices were under pressure after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, said the world needs new reserve currencies.  Wall Street futures point to a flat opening.  

On Monday, US stocks registered their worst slide in a month with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which ended last week in a positive territory

...

 

CRUDE OIL had a DRAW of 4382K.  Consensus was for a BUILD of 100K.  BULLISH (AND WAY OFF THE CONSENSUS!)

GASOLINE had a DRAW of 1553K.  Consensus was for a BUILD of 750K.  BULLISH(AND OFF FROM THE CONSENSUS!)

DISTILLATE had a DRAW of 318K.  Consensus was for a BUILD of 1500K.  BULLISH (AND OFF FROM THE CONSENSUS!)

Very bullish report here (contrary to the analysts) as we enter the summer driving season.  That alone does not give us a trade. Since my last report oil and the USO have been on a tear.  The OIH, XLE, KOL, XNG have been doing pretty much as we expected: consolidating. 

Just waiting for the next move: will the oil stocks catch up with the USO or will we continue to have consolidation?  Who knows?

I just look for my

...

Hat tip to AbnormalReturns.com for highlighting a post by the Bespoke Investment Group about rising oil prices yet oil stocks lagging behind, the question is when will oil stocks catch-up to oil prices? If there’s one take away, its the ProShares Ultra Oil & Gas (ETF) (NYSE:DIG).

First up, the Bespoke Investment Group on Oil Continues to Outperform Oil Stocks:  Oil continues to rally on a daily basis and it is now up to $65/barrel after getting down to the $30s just a few months ago.  At the same time, oil stocks have lagged the commodity pretty significantly.   

Below is a historical chart of the ratio between oil stocks and oil.  When the line is rising, oil stocks are outperforming oil, and when the line is falling, oil is outperforming oil stocks.  When oil tanked at the end of 2008, the

…

Coal was one of our best performing sector groups in latter 2007 through summer 2008. While much of the focus of late has been on natural gas, the coal stocks have been ripping in even larger magnitude. I was a bull on coal over natural gas (although the market in its student body left trading simply moves all commodities together) because of the portability of coal over natural gas. We were early on this theme as the market was so focused on oil stocks at the time, and made a lot of money [Dec 6, 2007: Coal Stocks Quietly in Bull Market] I wrote a bevy of pieces about this 1.5 years ago… but again, the market is not very granular nowadays; it likes big sweeping themes that are simple: i.e. commodities good.

I have a litany of posts on just about

…