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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Most professional CTA’s look and think about trading much differently than an average trader or investor would, and the reason for this is not hard to understand. If a CTA is successful, they have dedicated their lives to the craft. Every trader wants to be successful; the subtle difference with a profitable CTA is that […]
The range of market prices gives a non-high-tech measure of historical volatility* throughout a trading interval, usually a day or a week. The range of prices is defined as the difference between the high and the low for that given trading interval. For example, if the current day’s range lies beyond the previous day’s range […]
Bulls had something to cheer about to finish off last week’s trading in the Cattle markets after Thursday’s limit higher move followed by a $2-3 rally on Friday. However, the Friday afternoon USDA news was somewhat of a letdown, with the choice beef cutout coming in off $3.02 and the monthly COF (Cattle on Feed) […]
Success in trading is measured in terms of the growth of the account balance. A CTA is not expected to play God and call every twist and turn in the market correctly. Some professional and proven CTA systems are only correct 25-30% of the time and still consistently pull huge profits out of the markets. […]