Boone Pickens Bets Oil Prices Will Fall

The market is getting a nice boost in early trading, let by several positive developments in the tech sector.

Cisco (CSCO) was upgraded to Buy at Citi, RIMM raised its net subscriber guidance significantly, and Microsoft (MSFT) said it will be making a "significant" announcement this morning that is not related to its Yahoo! offer.

Of those items, RIMM is getting the biggest lift, as this news flies in the face of the well know consumer slowdown that was thought to hit the handset makers as well as the layoffs in the finance and real estate industries that were supposed to hurt subscriber growth. Wrong.

As for oil, it is slightly lower this morning, trading near $98.80. On CNBC, T.Boone Pickens, who first predicted $100 oil, said he is currently short oil and natural gas as he expects prices to come down in the 2nd quarter.

A very weak Philly Fed survey is weighing on bond yields, with the 10-year yield down 13 basis points to 3.78%. And jobless claims came in at 349k, lower than last week, and still below levels that would normally be associated with recession.

The market is acting like it wants to break out of this recent trading range, and break out to the upside. I added some long exposure yesterday, and will add more on a successful breakout.

long RIMM