Tag: futures

I know a lot about grains. In fact, I know much more than the average person about energies, metals, currencies, softs, and financials. I would never try to trade any of them for customers for a simple reason. I know others who have done nothing for most of their careers except focus on each area. […]

Corn: (July Corn Futures) – Values managed to edge higher by ½ cent on today’s session, settling at $3.61 even after the USDA analysts chose not to upwardly adjust new crop yield estimates leaving them at 166.8 bu/acre. This is the second-highest yield now on the books, however, the trade may see this as a […]

Cash Price – Futures Price = Basis (at a specific point in time) A producer’s decision as to when and how to market their crops or livestock can have as significant an impact on their net bottom line profit as any production decision they may make throughout the year. Farmers today have more marketing alternatives […]

In my previous article, we reviewed the first seven of 13 “mental blocks” to investing an average CTA or investor may butt up against throughout trading or investing. To continue from where we ended off in the previous commentary, we will cover the final six biases and blocks that may affect how a CTA tests […]

A tranquil session today in the soybean market, with soymeal taking a backseat to oil. The nearby soybean spread May 15 vs. July 15 strengthened even with abundant total U.S. supplies in the picture. We have now seen Chinese imports lagging the year-ago pace for the last three consecutive months, with the cumulative seven-month import […]

Average CTA’s, investors, and people generally have an overwhelming desire to be “right.” Who likes to be wrong? You read and hear daily from friends, and fellow traders (spouses – J), how important it is to be correct, especially when they make a market prediction or, even worse when they put real money into a […]

Crude bulls posted a new yearly high on Friday as WTI rocketed higher in the previous two sessions after Wednesday’s more bullish-than-expected DOE inventory release. More bullish?? Or less bearish might be more like it. Since making multi-year lows on March 18, WTI crude has seen a healthy 42% rebound. Likewise, Brent crude has rallied […]

When looking at a managed futures investment, a primary consideration should be whether a CTA’s program is offered as a fund product or a single managed account. When investing in a fund, an investor subscribes to the fund and invests the minimum capital requirement or more. Here, the investor pools their assets with other investors […]

Previously, we went over the first 3 of the 6 key variables to trading; a CTA or Money Manager knows that you may not, and as promised, here are the last 3 Variables. To recap, the first three were Now onto #4, 5, and #6… #4. How often do you have the opportunity to trade? […]

The myriad of bad economic news throughout the first quarter was punctuated today by the Commerce Department report that reported U.S. gross domestic product barely grew, only rising at a 0.2 percent annualized pace in the first three months of 2015. As usual, Federal Reserve officials sounded upbeat in their statement today, and as expected, there was […]

At 10:06 EST Tuesday, news broke from Dubai-based Al Arabiya that the Iranians had sieged a US cargo vessel in the Gulf. Brent and WTI spiked within minutes as the algos went wild. However, both markets failed to breach yesterday’s high. Within an hour, the market erased these gains as it turned out this was […]