Futures Magazine May 01, 2009

Trading Techniques

• The put and call comfort zone

  By Paul D. Cretien

  Market prices for options are rigidly structured by computer models. An option trader may have opinions on the proper buying or selling price, but ultimately the price will be placed close to an

• Day-trading silver with technicals

  By Frank D. Cholly

  We are currently facing some of the most volatile market conditions that we have ever seen. Uncertainty in the marketplace creates this volatility and makes it difficult for the average trader to

• How yield curves signal metal moves

  By Ashraf Laidi

  Yield curves in U.S. financial markets have long served as an invaluable guide to the bond market’s prevailing assessment of the cost of money, and more important, as an effective predictor of the

• Trading for keeps

  By Staff Writer

  Too many traders focus on setups and entry patterns, casting aside the concept of money management with the mistaken belief that if they enter correctly, then the profits will take care of

Forex Trader

• The search for recovery

  By Abe Cofnas

  Despite the well-defined and ongoing credit crisis, the financial contraction triggered by the Lehman collapse was sudden, severe, worldwide and went beyond expectations, despite being telegraphed in

Futures 101

• Learning to use options in trading

  By Christine Birkner

  Using options and their ability to establish positions with a known risk is a good idea, but there is a catch-22. Beginner and less capitalized traders can benefit from options, but understanding

Editor's Note

• Golden rule?

  By Ginger Szala

  A few months ago our parent company moved a Web site that had been run by the conference group over to the media division. And because the site focused on metals and pretty much anything brought up

Book Reviews

• Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis: How to Profit from the Shifting Currents in Global Marke

  By Nelson Freeburg

  Ashraf Laidi is a highly regarded currency analyst whose focus spans the full range of global markets. This welcome text won’t tell you how to get rich trading forex but it does furnish penetrating

• The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You’ll Ever Need

  By Brandon Jones

  Irony exists in the title and the content of this book. Had an investor diversified his portfolio in early 2008 (when the book came out) according to the authors’ six “good” alternative investments,

Market Analysis

• Crude oil climb?

  By Christine Birkner

  Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Alaron, says that despite bearish supply and demand fundamentals, crude oil is still poised to move higher in May. He says the Federal Reserve’s quantitative

• Euro trashed again

  By Christine Birkner

  Depending on the day and who you talk to, the euro is either on the brink of becoming the world’s reserve currency or of extinction. Recently it had been trading down, and analysts don’t expect a

• Nasdaq on fire

  By Daniel P. Collins

  Among many analysts the Nasdaq 100 is the best indicator for equities among all the indexes. That has been true in the upward correction that began on March 10. The NQ never took out its November

Managed Money

• LACM settles with regulator

  By Daniel P. Collins

  Last Atlantis Capital Management (LACM) and principal Irwin Berger has agreed to withdraw its National Futures Association membership in a settlement of a complaint charging the firm and Berger with

• Why silver may outshine gold

  By Staff Writer

  Silver is currently underpriced relative to gold and may offer the best opportunity for long-term profit in the metals sector. While both gold and silver are safe-haven investments, particularly as a

• The nature and origins of trend following

  By Staff Writer

  Although trend following has been a popular trading philosophy for many years, surprisingly little has been written about its origins and history. This is partly due, no doubt, to the scarcity of

New For Traders

• New for Traders

  By Christine Birkner

  CME Group will offer OTC grain swaps through CME ClearPort. CME Group also announced four new average price options contracts and announced 14 new petroleum product swap futures contracts. CME Group

People

• Jones to head NYSE Liffe

  By Christine Birkner

  Garry Jones was promoted to group executive vice president & head of global derivatives at NYSE Liffe, replacing Hugh Freedberg, who was promoted to chairman. Previously Jones was executive director

Trader Profiles

• Molinero: The sound of markets

  By Steve Zwick

  Today, those questions are along the lines of “Can the same algorithms that digital signal processing (DSP) systems use to differentiate voice from background noise also be used to differentiate true

Breaking News

• ISE seeks regulatory reform

  By Christine Birkner

  Questioning the effectiveness of the regulatory structure in the United States is nothing new, particularly in the equity options industry, which faces a much more burdensome structure. So on March

• Merrill Lynch to pay $39.8 mil

  By Christine Birkner

  The fallout from the collapse of commodity brokerage Refco continued when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) ordered Merrill Lynch to pay $39.8 million ($30.6 million, plus 9%

• Traders face serious jail time

  By Daniel P. Collins

  Two Chicago Board of Trade floor traders were indicted in April on Federal fraud charges for allegedly engaging in noncompetitive trades that resulted in profits exceeding $2 million while depriving

• Federal Reserve in market for Treasuries

  By Christine Birkner

  With short-term interest rates set at zero to 0.25%, one of the few ways left for the Federal Reserve Bank to affect U.S. interest rates is through direct purchases of Treasuries. After hinting for

• Did LTCM foreshadow recent events?

  By Staff Writer

  In the past decade, the world has seen a number of large-scale financial meltdowns. But first came the bankruptcy of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in the summer of 1998, which led

• Letter to the editor

  By Staff Writer

  As Dan Collins reports in the May edition of Futures, it's clear why the upstairs trader begged for electronic trading and why the downstairs trader suppressed it for as long as possible. Two

Industry Trends

• Credit default swaps: Still the object of desire

  By Steve Zwick

  “There is a growing recognition that the dispersion of credit risk by banks to a broader and more diverse group of investors, rather than warehousing such risk on their balance sheets, has helped

• Complex margining

  By Steve Zwick

  As regulators in the United States and Europe put pressure on broker-dealers to clear their OTC business, some within the exchange community have worried that the business could be a short-term

Markets

• Tech talk: Is the bull market still golden?

  By Charles Nedoss

  Riding the long-term gold bull can be quite a wild ride these days. Many traders have been bumped off the proverbial mega–bull, much like a rookie bull rider, as is illustrated in the daily chart

Profiles in Options

• Dan Keegan: Adding to a winner

  By Daniel P. Collins

  Dan Keegan spent more than 20 years learning the nuances of trading options on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and now along with exercising those lessons in his personal

• Out-of-the-money put butterfly

  By Staff Writer

  Let’s take corn futures as an example. Trader Jo is anticipating a strong yield in corn despite a possible late start to the growing season due to a very rainy April. The concern is that excessive

Profiles in Forex

• Floyd: Trading the game

  By Christine Birkner

  Floyd’s first foray into trading was in 1994, when he worked as an institutional sales trader on the fixed income and foreign currency desk at Standard Chartered Bank. He was “not a typical trader in

• Trading FX off of the S&P

  By Staff Writer

  Trading FX is the ultimate intellectual challenge. Contrary to what most books and ‘gurus’ tell you, there are no cookie cutter formulas to trading FX, or any other market for that matter. The FX