Refining margins

With what appears to be a bottleneck at Cushing, WTI crude continues diverging bearishly against Brent while the term structure for gasoline remains bullish.  Refiners must be making a fortune.  Going long refiners against a short XLE or ERX is probably not a bad idea

Still long VLO

Gasoline futures are in a nice backwardation, which is bullish, and WTI crude is at this point still in a slight contango, which is overall somewhat neutral.  Given this, there's no reason to fade the new highs in refining margins.  Not bullish on the overall market, but I'm still long VLO w/ market shorts to hedge.  It's at 28 as I write this.  I originally bought the breakout at 20, as you can go back in my blog to confirm.

VLO now at the key $22 area

I've been long VLO from $20 about a week ago, and now it's getting to the big load-up price at $22.  Refining margins are still really strong, and VLO is still best of breed in a sector in which WNR and CVI have already run big-time.  Looking forward to the break to new 1 and a half year highs!

In other news, the position in Uptrending Equity: Swapped out puts for a long Dec VIX pos has been making me money pretty much every day regardless of market direction