Futures Magazine May 01, 2008
Cover Story
Metals: Precious little supply
Boris Schmitz-Thiersen’s family has been selling jewelry in the same location in Cologne, Germany, for more than 100 years, with a brief sabbatical during World War II. Only in the past year,
Trading Techniques
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Five minutes to fame in the E-mini
Trading does not have to be complicated. For most traders, if they take time to look carefully at candle or bar charts, they will quickly discover that price action alone is all you need to observe
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Grain bears: Waiting for a miracle
Here’s the landscape that commodities are facing today: An energy policy that mandates 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, an agricultural policy that restricts acres and prevents supply from
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Silver shining brightly
Without a doubt, most investors, if they could, would only employ investment strategies that maximize their profit opportunities, minimize their risk and take little time or effort. Call it human
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Idealized models for real profits
Long-time system developer Robert Pardo defines potential profit as what “could be realized by buying every bottom and selling every top. More precisely, it is the sum of every price change where
Forex Trader
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Extreme market conditions
The Federal Reserve Bank’s recent activism in the interest of promoting psychological stability makes one wonder about the qualifications of central bankers. Perhaps they need advanced degrees in
Book Reviews
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Full of Bull: Do What Wall Street Does, Not What it Says, To Make Money in the Market
This book is not a soft-focus memoir. McClellan charges hard. He cites two main reasons why investors should treat Wall Street research skeptically. First, securities analysts do not bill clients for
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The Brainwashing of the American Investor: The Book that Wall Street Does not Want you to Read!
Selengut’s goal is to provide a personal stock market investing plan using a conservative strategy focused on a diversified portfolio. The key concepts are quality, diversification and income. Along
Market Analysis
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Beans on a tear
After trading near $16 per bushel in early March, May soybeans dipped to below $11.50. Victor Lespinasse, analyst for Grainanalyst.com., attributes the sell-off to profit taking but adds, tight
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No European vacation
Since early February, the euro raced from 1.44 to past 1.59, put in a triple top and hit an all-time high on April 10 of 1.5914. “It’s been acting like a completely different animal,” says trader
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Gassed
With crude oil trading above $110 per barrel and Memorial Day on the horizon, gasoline futures should be poised for take off. But with inventory at a 17-year high and demand dropping for the first
Managed Money
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Hedge your hedge fund
During the course of the subprime debt crisis that began last summer, we have heard on a number of occasions that this bank or that bank did not have exposure to subprime per se but were hurt by the
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Improve your odds trading gold
Gold, gold, gold — that’s all you hear about these days. With the volatility in metals, and all commodities for that matter, everyone’s a gold trader or wants to be. But even a gold bull could have
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Alternatives for retail
Public commodity pools are basically the managed futures version of mutual funds. They are sold in increments as low as $1,000 and there are few restrictions as to who can invest in them. But that is
Options Strategy
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Using a 2-to-1 ratio spread
A two-to-one ratio spread is primarily used when you have at least 90 days until expiration, where you have a known risk if wrong and unknown reward if right. In the case of a ratio call spread; this
New For Traders
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New for Traders
The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) introduced eight new cash-settled electricity futures contracts for the Texas market. Also, Nymex introduced 15 new financially-settled swap futures contracts
People
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Lyall moves to ICAP
Kenneth M. Ford, managing director of Credit Suisse, was elected chairman of the Futures Industry Association. Ira Polk, chief administrative officer at MF Global, was elected vice chairman and Chris
Trader Profiles
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Tom James: A matter of degrees
When Tom James was nine years old, he swapped a favorite comic book for a copy of the Financial Times. Seven years later, he launched a little business – trading warrants on equities.
Breaking News
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Treasury sparks debate
The U.S. Treasury Department made some waves on March 31 with the release of its “Blueprint for a Stronger Regulatory Structure,” and the tsunami for the futures and options industry was its
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U.S. Futures Inc.
Now that the CME Group and Nymex officials have a definitive merger agreement, the CME Group removed two impediments to the deal by selling the CBOT metals complex to NYSE Euronext for an undisclosed
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New clearing landscape
A panel of experts at the Futures Industry Association’s annual conference in Boca Raton, Fla. concluded in March that clearing is where the action will be this year, and that is certainly true in
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Broker takes twin hits
Things may not be getting much better for MF Global but for now execs and shareholders of the huge futures broker may be satisfied with things not getting worse. In late February, the firm was forced
Futures 101
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Ag fundamentals: Old and new
We are entering a new world for agriculture fundamentals. Weather and governmental reports on inventory, planting intentions and other traditional measures of supply and demand used to be the main
Industry Trends
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No more second city
Chicagoans jokingly refer to their hometown as America’s second city, but that sort of self deprecation is probably more the norm outside the exchange space. For 160 years Chicago has been the center
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Up and comers
Chicago is home to several other very innovative exchanges, including OneChicago LLC, the U.S. Futures Exchange, the Chicago Stock Exchange and the Chicago Climate Exchange. OneChicago is an
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CBOE: Unbowed
When CBOT members wrote the bylaws for Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), they did not explicitly give themselves ownership over the fledgling exchange. In an effort to avoid regulation by the
Markets
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Tech Talk: MA in Gold
Though one of the least sophisticated technical indicators, the simple-moving average (SMA) has become a useful tool for trading precious metals, particularly gold. Smoother and slower moving than
Profiles in Forex
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Joe Gelet: Automating profits
Joe Gelet, president and head trader of Elite E Services, has developed multiple automated trading programs that have produced eye popping returns since 2005. The strategies include short – and
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Countertrend & Trend Exhaustion Indicator
Why countertrend? Forex is a unique market that requires unique applications of known indicators. The fundamental difference between FX and equity markets is they trade in near opposites: equities
Editor's Note
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Second to none
My office has a view looking across the Chicago river at the CME Group building, and I can see the top part of the tower, with Ceres above, of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Though most trading
