Top Takes From RealMoney

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Integrated Oils and Crude Oil Futures

By Howard Simons
06/23/09 9:55 a.m.

Chevron's(CVX Quote) downstream operations are about five times larger than its upstream; downstream is refining, marketing and transportation, while upstream is exploration and production.

Add in the chemicals and natural gas, and you have a company that is short crude oil exposure. It buys crude oil on the open market and therefore is exposed to rising costs. Therefore, its two-year beta to one-year crude oil future strip prices (12 months ahead) of 0.513 should surprise no one, and the r-squared or percentage of variance explained for this relationship of 0.246 is pretty low.

The integrateds such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote) and Chevron should not be considered proxies for crude oil prices.

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Boeing Delay

By Robert Marcin
06/23/09 10:10 a.m.

Boeing's(BA Quote) fifth delay of its 787 is a significant negative and will probably clip the budding rally in the aerospace sector. As much as I would like to invest in these names, they are overbought with a deteriorating earnings outlook on the aero cycle. The 787 news just adds another headwind.

No positions

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Put/Call Ratio

By Helene Meisler
06/23/09 12:25 p.m.

As of this hour, the equity put/call ratio is in the 90% area. There are still many hours to go in the trading day, so we might not close there, but we haven't had a reading with a "9" handle since early March -- before the low.

This negative sentiment would be coming just as we're getting oversold (see today's column) and just as we head into the end-of-the-quarter markup period.

Positions: Looking for an oversold rally into quarter-end

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