Along with the time and hassle savings of just working the Dec (and Jul) vs Front month endless rolling busy-ness for things like ZC and perhaps CL, A quick look at the ZC Mar 15m chart next to the ZC Dec 15m chart points up something interesting. The ZC Dec 15m chart looks much cleaner and easier to read imho. Margins ZC Mar Initial 2812.50 USD Maintenance 2250.00 USD ZC Dec Initial 2125.01 USD Maintenance 1700.00 USD
You'd be losing or gaining whatever your unrealized PnL is when you "roll". You're simply closing one position and opening another. It is no more complicated than that.
As a commodity producer I use far out months to hedge my production. I’ve always looked at the further out months as being more influenced by commercial hedgers than the near by contracts. I’ve pretended that it gave me a little insight to the future but I’ve never really quantified it. The COT report the calendar premium/discount is what I use for the same purpose. When speculating I stick to the front month because the moves tend to be larger than in later months. Sometimes I’ll put on calendar spreads when TA for different months contradict each other.