Ahhhh... It all falls into place now. I was actually on the cointegration train during the time I messaged you just recently. Still chipping away at it though, nothing much I could really ask you about haha. Using MATLAB. Hopefully it will turn into something useful
Honestly, I don't consider them 'spreads' - from a risk standpoint, you are better off just trading the outright IMO. They are just pure divergence plays. For example, the calendar spreads have been so good with the grains that honestly I have seen no reason to get involved in that nonsense of beans vs. corn. Ditto for WTI vs. Brent as well. There are plenty of smoother and better 'behaved' (in terms of modeling) spreads out there. Lots.
Well, Brent / WTI Was a spread until it wasn't. Know what I'm sayin? I'm not trying to refute what you are saying because I know exactly what you mean. But it was doing alright for a little while (pre May) in terms of that risk standpoint. Am i wrong? I guess it loses a lot of credibility as a spread if it will trade 99% and then experience such a divergence like that with no reversion seemingly for the last 2.5 months.
True. Did you catch the zero hedge article about it? I can't link cause my copy and paste isn't working
I mean, from semantics standpoint the Bund vs. the Ten Year Note is a spread trade. Except that upon closer inspection, the two year correlation is about 65% - and the cointegration characteristics and divergence traits suck bigtime.
In terms of the previous post, I was referring to my original post on page 19 of this thread, 07-21-11 10:36 AM
Starting from square one, I'm looking for good introductory information to get up to speed on spreading. This is the stuff that is taken for granted by people who have been active in this area for years. Above all, I'm looking for dense information (lists) more than strategy ideas or verbose essays. I'm curious about the actual mechanics of it: a list of the exchange recognized inter-commodity spreads (and their recognized/margined ratios), which ones have electronically quoted implied prices and which need to be legged, etc. Maybe a brief intro to fundamentally-meaningful yield curve or ag spreads? I have some ideas for strategies, but have had trouble coming up with answers to these basic questions so I can figure out how much I still need to learn before it makes sense to start testing ideas. I would appreciate it if anyone could provide links with this sort of information. Thanks!