Here we go again. Almost everybody in this post claiming to be a winner succesful traders. More than 90% is small traders lose. They just lose!!
Small traders with fundamental models in the grains, and who belittle the use of technical analysis for spread trading.
We have been short Corn spreads since March. We rolled our short July positions into short U1 and Z1 positions. Go over to the "trading grain spreads using fundamentals" post, as I explained it detail yesterday, and today I posted the price charts. And yes, we held those shorts through all numbers. I really started adapting grain spreads to my TECHNICAL models built exclusively for spreads last Spring, and for the past two years we are absolutely killing them. I have a client from the S&P pit who is 7 for 7 this year in the grains. Just killing. And yes, we hold all positions through the numbers.
06-30-11 03:28 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from b.hull: New to this and may in fact be delusional but electronic prices appear to have neglected an important fundamental component to last nite's price. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We rolled out of July on June 20th, and our models in both ZC Z1-Z2 and ZC U1-Z1 have been short bias since early March. Today's price action was very good for us. ZW U1-Z1 has been a short bias since mid-February, but looks like we are working on a trend change to a buy bias in the near future. ZS U1-X1 has been a short bias since January, but like Wheat looks to be progressing towards a long bias in the near future. So, whatever your point is, today was great for us at least. That, of course, was yesterday. Today's Confirmation: [/QUOTE]
My swing position are still short as well. I have a couple guys here in the office that day trade them too. I love the grains.
I got crucified over in the grain forums from EMG and LOCAL because I spread trade based off of technical models which I developed especially for spreads. It used to be that the interest rate curve and the energy complex was my bread-and-butter, but the grains in 2010 and 2011 have been just brilliant. We have a tremendous amount of confidence in them. We trade Cotton and Sugar spreads over at ICE-US as well. Some of my clients trade the Live Cattle Crush.
Amazing how close our Dec. Corn chart is. I have many friends that own feed lots in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
Prof, I don't have my custom studies loaded into the charts I posted, but you certainly get the point and you can read between the lines. We use volatility-dependent multiple timeframe confirmations and set our profit and stop-loss targets AT ENTRY. For about half of the losses I take, the model gets me out before I hit the stop target. I personally have about 400 spread combinations loaded into a custom scanner which I use for intial screening. I start my clients off with a "starter" list of 71.