The top panel of the chart above shows USO, an exchange traded fund that attempts to track the price of crude oil. The price has broken out of a consolidation area, which is bullish from my point of view.
The panel at the bottom of the chart shows USO divided by $WTIC (which represents the futures price of crude oil). My point is that this ETF is doing a relatively poor job at tracking the underlying commodity.
In general, I think it is better to trade actual futures contracts rather than these type of ETF products, which is what I am going to do going forward. I am currently long crude oil futures in another account aside from my stock trading account.
In addition to oil breaking out on the daily chart, the price action is also forming a bullish formation on the long term monthly chart:
