Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) articles from April 2005

Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) archives from April 2005

Deficit attention disorder.(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... One of the most illuminating (or disturbing) passages from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in the book, The Price of Loyalty, is when Vice President Dick Cheney tells O'Neill after the 2002 mid-term elections and Republican...

Commodity history lesson.(Sound Off!)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... Ever wonder how interest rates, stock indexes, insurance losses, heating degree days and the like came to be "commodities"? Back in 1973-74 when I was representing the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was...

Trailing commissions.(Sound Off!)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... Really good article on trailing commissions--an excellent exposition of a recondite subject, with an evenhanded airing of opposing views. Thanks. Elizabeth L. Ritter Assistant General Counsel, CFTC

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2005... In the chart of the top CTAs of 2004 on page 63 in our March Top Traders feature, we mistakenly titled the second column "Worst drawdown during 2004." The figures supplied are the worst peak to valley drawdown over the last three years for each...

Protective custody: NFA lassos forex markets.(National Futures Association)
April 1, 2005... The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was supposed to provide legal certainty for the regulation of retail foreign exchange trading, but left several loopholes for the unscrupulous to prey on uninformed retail investors. ...

Refco targeted: TT takes next step.(Trading Technologies files lawsuit against Refco Group Ltd.)
April 1, 2005... The next step in the saga of Trading Technologies' defense of its patented technology was unveiled in February as TT filed a patent infringement case against Refco Group Ltd., LLC. The lawsuit claims that Refco has infringed on TT's patented...

Musical trading floors ... Race to a global oil mart.(trendlines)
April 1, 2005... Round and round the trading pit goes, where it stops... Is London, at least four to six months down the road, and probably much longer. But until then, International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) traders looking to do their business open outcry...

It's a gas: ethanol wars.(trendlines)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... In a move that smelled of oneupsmanship, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced it was getting into the energy futures market by launching an ethanol contract on March 29, just prior to the Chicago Board of Trade's (CBOT) planned...

Could the battle for LSE bring Liffe back into play?(London Stock Exchange)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... When Deutsche Boerse gave in to shareholder demands and withdrew its bid for the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in early March, Euronext became the favorite bidder for LSE but is not a lock to get it. Clem Chambers, CEO of the ADVFN online...

Thai on.(International News)(The Thailand Futures Exchange)(Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Thailand Futures Exchange (TFEX) was given approval by Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission to operate as a futures exchange. TFEX, which is a subsidiary of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, is expected to begin operations in the...

ISE IPOs, ICE to IPO.(International News)
April 1, 2005... International Securities Exchange (ISE) CEO David Krell rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on March 9 as the ISE completed its IPO. The launch was a success as ISE closed at $30.40, 68.88% above the IPO offering price of $18....

Who pulled the plug.(International News)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Electronic trading at the CBOT was suspended for three hours on March 7, due to sporadic connectivity issues according to the CBOT. Trading in the Exchange's open auction markets was unaffected by the trading suspension, and all markets closed...

33 years of Futures ...(trendlines)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Futures has thrived for more than three decades by providing unbiased tips, news, profiles, advice and current market analysis. Here, we spotlight some events Futures has covered during its 33 years. This flashback includes some articles from...

CME makes average pricing simpler.(Managed Money Review)(Chicago Mercantile Exchange)
April 1, 2005... The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is working on a mid-April release of an upgrade to its front-end clearing application that should make life simpler for futures commission merchants' (FCM) back offices and commodity trading advisors (CTA)...

Griffin joins Arnold & Porter.(Trading Places)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Michael F. Griffin will be practicing the law he knows best, in hedge fund futures and derivatives, as a partner at Arnold & Porter in the New York office. He was formerly a partner at Dorsey & Whitney. Seven other partners have joined...

No Canada, yes higher cattle.(Hot Commodities)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... A decision by a federal judge in Montana to delay the opening of the U.S. border to Canadian live cattle drove cash markets to an all-time high of $94. The border has been closed since May 2003, when a single cow was found to have mad-cow...

Coffee boils over.(Hot Commodities)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Brazil's smaller off-year coffee crop, a draught in Vietnam and long-standing low prices have driven coffee to multi-year highs. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] "This bull market is a long time in coming, "says Judy Ganes-Chase, president of J....

Crude back on bull.(crude oil prices continue to climb)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... "The market is going against all the fundamentals," says Darren F. Dohme, energy trader at Powerline Petroleum, "It's a crazy market." Crude oil stocks are 23 million barrels higher than this time last year, gasoline supplies are more than...

Will equities stall in second quarter?(market strategy)
April 1, 2005... As of early March the S & P 500 is clearly in a fifth wave of its current uptrend and could be poised for a correction. In fact, it is in the fifth wave of a fifth wave, as you can see from the chart. The significance is that once this wave is...

The outlook for a deficit driven dollar: dollar culprits are not hard to find. Lower than average U.S. interest rates and talk of central banks selling dollars have provided more than their fair share of contributions to a weak greenback. However, many insiders rank the twin deficits--the trade and budget deficits--as the most immediate dollar perpetrators and predict that today's deficit will dictate tomorrow's dollar.(MARKETS)(Cover Story)
April 1, 2005... As if "negative sentiment" isn't a bad enough description for the U.S. dollar these days, many analysts add words like "prevalent" and "widespread" to their long-term 2005 dollar forecasts. Most economists, and many traders, expect the dollar...

Tech talk: exploiting the forex squeeze.(markets)
April 1, 2005... "A trader's job is not to say what should be, but to analyze and exploit what is." --Mike Epstein, MIT When John Bollinger first burst upon the investment scene in the 1970s, he wasn't satisfied with the tools available so he set to...

Innovations in technology.(Forex Trader)
April 1, 2005... In 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock. This new phrase described the phenomenon of culture shock resulting from fast technological change. In many ways "future shock" is an apt description of the world of the forex trader. Rapid advances in...

Going wide with VHF indicator: the wide-range vertical horizontal filter identifies trending and ranging phases of the market. The indicator works in both short-term and long-term analysis. Here's how to calculate it.(Vertical Horizontal Filter)
April 1, 2005... Some traders think of markets as being in either an uptrend or a downtrend. However, a security's price can move in three directions--up, down or sideways. The sideways direction is not less important than up or down movement, as prices spend a...

Other governments, other debts: the interplay of interest rates and taxes creates an interesting backdrop for trading the muni-over-bond and muni-under-note spreads.
April 1, 2005... Uncle Sam can sure turn a few heads whenever he moseys on up to the bar each quarter and borrows to buy a few rounds and whatever else suits his fancy. And why not: An entity more than $7 trillion in debt and congenitally unable to exercise...

Winning with volatility skew: understanding how the market prices comparable puts and calls differently puts you on track to exploiting variations in relative implied volatility levels--otherwise known as volatility skew.
April 1, 2005... Most experienced option traders are familiar with the concept of volatility; but some of the finer points, such as the skew in option volatility pricing, often are casually overlooked. Overlooking these details can be a critical mistake. ...

Option selling, reality and the cosmic speed limit: this final installment of our series will bring all the option strategies together and provide a one-stop road map to navigating the potentially profitable universe of short options.
April 1, 2005... This series has presented an overview of the good, the bad and the potential pitfalls that can result from selling options that you don't own with the objective of making a profit. Options have more variables than futures, and are therefore a...

Dollar rally not a coin toss: there is no shortage of theories for what moves currency markets, but traders would be best served by avoiding the flavor of the month analysis and concentrate on interest rates.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
April 1, 2005... No market more closely resembles that of a random coin toss than the currency market. Each day analysts report on the reasons behind seemingly irrational fluctuations, whether they make sense or not. Hindsight allows them to reconstruct crime...

Out of sample, out of mind: last month we gave an overview of trading system development and different types of optimization. Here we continue with some case studies using simple out-of-sample optimization.
April 1, 2005... In optimization, it is important that the "best" set of parameters chosen in in-sample and walk-forward testing not be biased by the performance of the out-of-sample set. The best way to prevent this is to choose the parameter using some...

New trader's checklist: while 90% of beginning traders fail in their first six months, many of those failures can be chalked up to lack of preparedness. Here are tips that can improve your odds for success as a new trader.
April 1, 2005... Deciding how frequently you want to trade will drive several important and immediate decisions such as the way you interface with the market, the technology you will use and your trading methodology. Do you want to day trade online and full...

Fulfilling your data needs.(Online Trading)
April 1, 2005... Having access to market data and news is essential for every trader. There are few data vendors that specialize solely in collecting and distributing data and many firms offer data as well as news services and newsletters to aid you in your...

Forex-only funds go mainstream: despite that recent history has shown the benefit of diversification in managed futures programs, sector specific--particularly forex programs--are growing at a rapid pace. These programs are responding to customer demand for forex and benefiting from some of the asset classes unique attributes.(MANAGED MONEY)
April 1, 2005... Recently we wrote about how the explosion of volume in E-mini S & P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures had eventually led to the creation of sector specific commodity trading advisors (CTAs) and hedge funds taking their profitable equity index trading...

Scarr Visual Trading.(Software Review)
April 1, 2005... Scarr Visual Trading 1143 Railroad Dr. McKinleyville, Calif., 95519 Web: www.scarrtrading.com E-mail: support@scarrtrading.com Overall rating: Excellent Complexity level: Intermediate Price: A one-year...

Why can't we all just get along? Cross-border alliances among exchanges, clearinghouses and regulators have turned the concept of competition on its head and enabled even the lowliest of us to act like global hedge funds. But all of it could hit the skids unless someone figures out how to adequately compensate technology providers.(trade trends)
April 1, 2005... "We need to stop beating the hell out of each other," says Robert Ray, senior VP in charge of business development for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). "We need to stop trying to take markets away from each other and instead focus on helping...

Contract Dates.(Dateline)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... 2 FND: Nybot Apr Ethanol F, Orange juice F, Sugar #11 F, LND: Nybot Apr Ethanol F, Sugar #11 F, LTD: BM & F Alcohol OF, CME Apr Weather F,OF. [TABLE OMITTED] 3 FND: BM & F Alcohol F. 5 LTD: Safex Bonds F. 6 LTD: CME Butter...

Richard Scalone's conservative approach.(trader profile)(Biography)
April 1, 2005... When Richard Scalone graduated from Columbia University with a degree in economics, he received two job offers: one was for an assistant purchasing agent position at Macy's department store and the other was for an overnight trader at the...