By the Numbers

Initial unemployment claims were greater than expected at 46,000, and the four-week moving average we keep track of was 382,500. That still indicates modest growth, but the upturn in the weekly number bears watching.

Existing-home sales were worse than hoped for, at 4.86 million units, and the inventory of unsold homes moved up a bit to 11.1 months of sales, from 10.8. The rate of increase in that statistic is slowing, but the total offered for sale is still a daunting figure.

It is becoming more obvious that growth is rapidly slowing in Europe. Retail sales in the U.K. were surprisingly poor, and some figures out of Germany -- Europe's growth engine -- show a faltering economy. This has helped the dollar stabilize and should keep downward pressure on the price of oil. The U.S. and Europe are 60% of global growth (thanks Nancy Lazar of ISI for that fact), and both are struggling. I think the edge is off the commodity trade.

I was wrong to think that energy stocks were discounting lower oil prices some weeks ago when we halved our positions. We have been correct in guessing that the price of oil was due for a correction, but we should have sold all our energy names. That being said -- and hindsight is wonderful -- the decline in some of these names makes them look very tempting.

I own Chevron (CVX - commentary - Cramer's Take): the last sale as I write is about $82 with a 52 week range of $76 to $104. It trades at a single-digit P/E ratio and has a 3.1% yield. EOG Resources (EOG - commentary - Cramer's Take) is a domestic natural gas E&P (exploration and production) company. Last sale is around $101, and the 52-week range is $65 to $144.

Jim Cramer is nervous about gas prices, in that another gas company XTO (XTO - commentary - Cramer's Take) chose to price a common stock offering recently despite the correction in its stock price. He believes that is a signal on management's part they expect the price of gas to go lower. I suspect he is right. I continue to think the price of oil will head toward $100. CVX and EOG are two quality names that should be on our list of stocks to watch. If the price of oil continues down, as I expect will happen over the next few weeks, these names will become even more attractive. Being unable to pick tops or bottoms, buying a partial position now will look very good a year from now.

I didn't know this: Bing Crosby had 13 holes in one and died on a golf course in Madrid. I can whiff 13 times, no problem at all.

Long CVX

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Vincent Farrell Jr. is a principal of Scotsman Capital Management. Prior to joining Scotsman in April 2005, Farrell was chairman of Victory Capital Management of Cleveland and chairman of Victory SBSF Capital Management in New York. He was a founding partner of Spears Benzak Salomon & Farrell, which was acquired by KeyCorp in 1995. Vince held a variety of positions in his 23 years at SBSF, including chief investment officer, and he served as the portfolio manager on a number of the firm's largest client relationships. He is a regular guest on CNBC as well as other national print and broadcast media.

Prior to joining SBSF, Vince spent nine years at Smith Barney as a vice president, sales.

Vince graduated from Princeton University in 1969 and received his MBA from the Iona College Graduate School of Business in 1972.