If "tranche into oil" means what I think it does - I'm just glad Jeff Saut is saying it now!

I know I've edged off the starting line too soon several times in crude oil, so I was glad to see that Merriman has now indicated that a low is possible for oil, at least for a while (subject to standard trade management in case the low put in this past week doesn't hold near-term). And now I'm also happy to see that Jeffrey Saut, the deservedly well-known Raymond James strategist, is quoted in this article, Politics As Usual Prevent Market Rally; Time to Tranche into Oil? , at Seeking Alpha (and borrowed from the Raymond James site as Saut's latest essay there on Feb. 18,), as thinking it may be time to move into oil. Here's a quote of his comments:

Interestingly, the spread between West Texas Intermediate crude [WTI] and Brent crude has again widened to $10/bbl and oil's contango (near-term oil prices trading at a discount to future crude oil prices) continues to steepen. Why? Bulging inventories and a futures contract expiring this Friday. Cushing storage is now up to 34.9 MMBbls and will likely test its maximum capacity threshold that is estimated at 37-39 MMBbls. Crude oil prices fell 5.5% last Thursday to settle at their lowest level in two months, while Brent crude (a truer reflection of the world's price of oil) actually rose 1%.

We continue to think crude oil prices are in the process of bottoming, and oil’s contango configuration reinforced that view, as does another article in Monday’s Financial Times titled “Total says oil output near peak.” Consistent with these views, the strategy of “tranching into” favored energy names over the coming months makes sense to us.

Now, I'm not really one for "tranching into" an asset, because I prefer the trader's approach of making an entry on a setup and looking for relatively quick confirmation, coupled with stop loss protection at an appropriate level (specifically a level that's usually nearby and would signal that the setup wasn't valid). (This is why I often mention stop loss levels - I consider it a courtesy to readers to point this out.) To me, "tranching" could be confused with ideas like averaging into a position as it's moving against you, or doubling down after something moved against you - normally, you can never trade your way out of a loss, so it's better to just stop out of a losing trade, preserve your capital, and then you can re-enter your entire position (usually at a better price) when the next setup presents.

But I do appreciate the comment about getting positive the oil sector (even though I wish Jeff Saut would have agreed with our positions about the equities markets and then he wouldn't have to apologize for having thought those markets would be in rally mode through last week). So, I'm starting to nibble into oil via exchange-traded funds (such as USO and UCO), especially if I see follow-through showing up on Monday and early next week. Because my trade setup is based on the idea of a possible triangle target having been met (as I posted a couple of days ago here), my stop loss is set at last week's low that seems to have fulfilled this target.

And I'll also consider Merriman's warning that, even with a trading rally that may give a very nice bounce in oil over coming weeks, it may yet give way to a deep pullback or even lower lows in a few months. So I'll be looking for the right Fibonacci retrace level in order to TMAR what I hope will be a successful swing trade in oil.
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By the way - having looked at Wikipedia to collect that depiction of an oil well rig, I found the following really neat info in Wikipedia's Oil well article about collection and use of oil in history:

"The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 CE. They had depths of up to about 800 feet (240 m) and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles.[1] The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt. By the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as burning water in Japan in the 7th century.[2]

"The Middle East's petroleum industry was established by the 8th century, when the streets of the newly constructed Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. Petroleum was distilled by the Persian alchemist Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) in the 9th century, producing chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (al-ambiq),[3] and which was mainly used for kerosene lamps.[4] Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century.[2]

"Some sources claim that from the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan, to produce naphtha for the petroleum industry. These fields were described by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those oil wells as hundreds of shiploads. When Marco Polo in 1264 visited the Azerbaijani city of Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, he saw oil being collected from seeps. He wrote that "on the confines toward Geirgine there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, inasmuch as a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time." "
(footnotes located in the Oil well article)