Let's talk energy. As you already may know, USO is the ETF representing the price of crude oil. Since we're on the verge of 2013, it's time to try an analyse the long term bias of that commodity. On the chart above, you can see a monthly chart of Oil prices since 2007. I would like to focus on the action starting at 2008 to the present. There we can see a 6 month long sharp decline and then, a consolidation of prices for about 4 years, volatility during that consolidation also shrank to merely $20 swings. Additionally, during that consolidation, volume has lost its magnitude which means that at these levels, there are less participants interested in taking part of the action. I don't know what's your background in technical analysis patterns but I see here a very red flag, correct me if I'm wrong. This flags could easily be presented in a chapter teaching about red flags, it was drawn by a pencil and a ruler. Lets add to the equation a fundamental piece of information, the recent uplift of the sanctions over Iran, which practically unveils a vast supply of Oil to the energy markets...You get the idea. What's next? combining the flag, the diminishing volume and the up coming supply pressure, if and only if we see a drop below $30, we should see a longer term price decline of that asset. So yea, Our call of USO for 2014 is down!