I never seek ROI, I will take what the market will give me, but my long term trading is completely opposite of day trading, hoping for multi year trade cause takes months for markets to go up unlike going down. I been short Crude oil since late February, took off half for 10k profit and sitting on breakeven stops. I don't trade ETFs yet, I always keep the front two months going and roll out each month, plus usually have spreads going on as well. I always put full position on and never add, and hedge on shorts unless there no volume on options, then I might have to lighten up my size or spoon fed them in. I never average down on long term trading cause my percentages on the futures side are rather low when you hunting for the extremes, but hedging keeps me in the game while searching for the extreme.
Nothing related but what are you thinking about the Mar14/Apr14 widowmaker spread? In 2013, the curve is almost in continued contango ( with March equal to April ) whereas in 2014 there is a real weakness in the spring expiries compared to March and July. It has moved quite a bit in the last few days...It's quite illiquid but still...???Thanks for your advices.
Oldtime, This article has a summary of the gas ETFs. As you probably know, there are also gas ETNs and a number of sector mutual funds that invest in E&P companies, O&G equipment companies and O&G service companies. An E&P mutual fund could be the appropriate vehicle for a set it and forget it gas investment. I think Fidelity Select Natural Gas (a recent weighting had them at two-thirds in gas E&P) has been around for almost 20 years. Might be interesting to compare its price to a continuous front month gas futures contract. UNG, as noted, has been an horrible investment but it's still wildly popular. Based on a glance at the table in the linked article, the Teucrium Funds gas ETF came the closest to tracking Henry Hub spot. Teucrium might have the right idea by spreading their futures contract ownership across four months. I think they follow a similar strategy with their CORN fund. http://www.investingdaily.com/15218/best-natural-gas-etfs-dont-invest-in-natural-gas
It would be great if we had more discussions like this... tactical approaches and outlooks on specific spreads. Of course the 'widow maker" [march/april] is renown for heping to propel John Arnold into stardom, while sending Brian Hunter into the abyss...
So what is the market seeing that I'm not? Production is high and storage appears to be full, why the move in nat gas?