CL level II depth is fairly meaningless when a big boy smokes the book down a 1/2 a point! We went from $66 and change to $65 and some during the time it took me to get lunch. I suggest you pick your levels and just ignore the "book". If you are wet behind the ears, try QM! el surdo
Every Joe Blow with a futures account is trading Crude, especially as volatility is peaking near Katrina Season. What about USO, the volume is only 1.6MM? You just are not talking to the right people. el surdo
I get a lot of value out of reading the book, but I don't think it's something one could define in an algorithm. It's in the subtleties, and serves as a filter rather than a trigger. I agree that if you're playing a longer timeframe then the book is largely irrelevant. For short-term trading I think it's very valuable. The behavior of the book is the personality of that particular market. It's just like getting to know a person and learning her moods and idiosyncrasies. I think if you're good at reading people, then you might be good at reading an order book. I think it's truly amazing that the group of individuals who constitute a product's market at any given moment collectively behave in a manner that is consistent and recognizable over time -- day to day, week to week. The CL book has its own distinctive personality, as does the ER2, the DAX, gold, etc.
I certainly agree with that, however survival in the CL playground certainly requires utilization of longer term horizons and I find the book to be noise. If you have access to the "Real Book", as in where the large stops are hibernating, that is valuable information. el surdo
I have been traading indexes mainly for years now. But recently CL caught my eye because of the moves. Few questions for the experienced traders : 1. Is there no correlations to other oil markets ? .eg Brent 2. What do you look at while trading CL? eg Bonds?? Indexes?? Thanks in advance
Are we having fun yet? I have noticed that during the recent weakness the discount of June CL to July CL widened to almost 200 points. Looking at a spread chart I see that the spread was near -200 several other times when the market was making swing lows. Would someone please comment if -200 is the cost of carrying crude from one month to the next? Is anyone trading these front month spread pairs? In the grain complex sometimes risk fee spreads trades are available when the spread is trading near the carry during quiet periods. For example: if one can pick up the January/March Soymeal spread near carry one can expect the January to gain on the March and even go to a premium at some point because of the inevitable winter transportation problems. I imagine this sort of setup may occur in the oil complex during the hurricane season. I am going to pay attention to this. The Oil Complex offers a great challenge and opportunities to a trader if one likes to think in other dimensions. I can hardly wait for th electronic trading of options to start. Regards, GC
There is a clear rising seasonal tendency in Crude from the first of May until the middle of the month according to http://www.seasonalcharts.com/ (It did not seem to matter this week). After mid-month the tendency is for lower prices until the end of the month. GC
I took a small long position here in CLM07, 61.27. for some short covering. I have been scalping all day and for the first time in days it feels like it could be a two sided market. GC