“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” -Albert Einstein If you’re going to tackle modern financial markets, let alone today’s futures markets, you have to be smart. While any trading success will be determined by your…
In another post, I talked about how commodity hedgers and speculators care about whether or not the commodity futures markets are contango or backwardation markets. These two terms refer to different market conditions and contango is the opposite of backwardation. Backwardation is when…
Futures or commodities contracts offer investors and speculators a direct, highly leveraged vehicle to participate in the resource building blocks of the economy. Not long ago, limited market hours were less efficient with major price gaps up and down when…
One of the advantages of the futures markets is the opportunity to trade at nearly 24 hours. Global inputs or news outside of normal stock market hours can be digested immediately in the highly traded stock index contracts on the S&P…
Finally, the Federal Reserve has moved off zero and put money in motion with the long awaited and exhaustively discussed rate increase. The quarter of one percent rate is still negligible, with hardly a bump in the markets as per the…
Spread trading can be performed in numerous ways. While an options call spread or put spread may be the first method that comes to mind, spread trading can also be performed using different instruments or different contract months on the same…
The Comex gold futures contract provides numerous potential trading opportunities. With good liquidity and volatility, the potential for profit is there, as is an equal potential for loss. Gold usually reacts to movement in key outside markets such as crude oil,…
Each week, two major oil reports are released, the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday and the US Department of Energy EIA (Energy Information Administration) weekly petroleum status report on Wednesday mornings. These findings are closely watched as they report fundamental facts…
