Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) articles from February 2005

Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) archives from February 2005

Crude language.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... Whoever said what goes up must come down wasn't speaking about the commodities markets in general or energy markets in particular. At least not these days. According to traders and analysts, expect more of the same in the crude oil department,...

Knowledge gap filled.(Sound Off!)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... Thank you for the excellent article on gaps in the December issue ["Futures trading with gaps"]. I use basic strategies that I don't need a computer to apply. One of these is gaps, but there were some basic things about gaps that I didn't...

Long or short.(Sound Off!)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... I have to wonder about the guidance of Futures magazine. I read in the December issue in ["Pundits say sell, so buy the buck"] that I should be long the dollar and then in January's ["More downside for the dollar"] that I should be short. Which...

Classic articles.(Sound Off!)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the Commodities magazine was the predecessor of Futures... If so, I was wondering if there is still a way to get a reprint of an article from 1974? [I'm looking for the article by] Richard Donchian,...

Coming out party: TT shows its hand in patent fight.(Trendlines)(Trading Technologies Inc.)
February 1, 2005... Independent software vendor Trading Technologies (TT) in December sent an open letter to the futures industry and followed up with a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in early January, asking market participants to embrace its...

Survival of the fittest: security futures shake-out continues.(Trendlines)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Three months after security futures exchange NQLX announced it would delist all of its contracts, OneChicago, the lone U.S. exchange offering the hybrid products, announced it would delist its Microsector indexes. The narrow-based indexes...

Transformers: Euronext, Eurex, MTS in spotlight.(Trendlines)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The pieces in the ever-evolving puzzle of the European futures industry are shifting again. In early January, Europe was gearing up for what could be another round of industry-redefining takeovers, with Deutsche Boerse and Euronext openly...

Phosphorous paper: Nybot to trade paper electronically.(Trendlines)(New York Board of Trade)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Paper and cardboard boxes might not be very exciting, but we use an awful lot of it--$86 billion worth a year--and on Feb. 11, the New York Board of Trade (Nybot) will offer a new way to hedge and speculate in the paper business with pulp...

Chartview: records.(Trendlines)(Futures markets)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... * The Chicago Board of Trade traded a record 599,994,386 contracts in 2004, a 32% increase from 2003's record levels. It is the third consecutive year the CBOT set record volume. * The Chicago Mercantile Exchange traded a record 787,185,961...

Don't dump on me! Growers ask Feds to look into O.J.(Trendlines)(orange juice)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... If you have a long position in O.J. that is down in the dumps, some U.S. producers say you should blame south-of-the-equator business practices, not your broker. Florida orange growers and juice makers have asked the federal government to...

33 years of futures ...(Trendlines)
February 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...

ArcaEx expands.(International News)(Archipelago Exchange)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Archipelago Holdings Inc., the parent company of Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx), has entered into an agreement to acquire PCX Holdings, parent to the Pacific Exchange (PCX) which will eventually lead to the third all-electronic options exchange....

First Chinese oil contract to expire.(International News)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Oil traders have scaled back dealings and cut back positions in China's only oil futures market amid uncertainty about its first contract expiry. The Shanghai Futures Exchange's fuel oil contract, launched in August, was meant to help the...

New fees for NASD.(International News)(National Association of Securities Dealers)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The SEC increased the Section 31 transaction fee rates in January. The fee rate for NASD will increase to $32.90 per million. The previous fee was $23.40. The Section 31 assessment on security futures will remain unchanged at $0.009 per...

Hedge fund fights back.(Managed Money Review)
February 1, 2005... Those opposing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plan to register hedge fund advisors have complained that the regulator was bound and determined to push through registration without listening to industry concerns despite not making...

Tilly back for second term.(Trading Places)(appointments and resignations)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Edward Tilly will serve a second one-year term as vice chairman at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. During his first year as vice chairman, the CBOE has had to meet the competition on payment for order flow, a practice that Tilly says...

Cold beef, hot prices.(Hot Commodities)(beef prices)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Winter storms added to volatility in live cattle prices early this year as weather now becomes the dominant factor until spring. Rich Nelson, director of research for Allendale, says that the March 7 target for Canadian cattle to reenter...

Heating supply holds up.(Hot Commodities)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Though gasoline and heating oil are byproducts of crude oil, often during certain times of the year the byproducts drive price and when the days get short and temperatures drop, heating oil usually is in charge. That isn't the case...

S & P alive in 2005?(Hot Commodities)(futures markets)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Mike Cavanaugh, equity index analyst for My Futures Online, sees the early January sell-off on the S & P 500 is just a correction in a strong market. He doesn't buy into the January effect, which says the market will mirror for the year how it...

Energy prices: where do we go from here?(MARKETS)(Cover Story)
February 1, 2005... Between potential disruptions in key oil-producing countries, weather forecasts and good old-fashion inventory/price relationships, energy traders have had quite a plate full of factors to digest. Analysts and traders, however, are now sorting...

Tech talk: watch your head ... and shoulders.(MARKETS)
February 1, 2005... Recent price action in crude oil futures has formed one of the more reliable patterns in technical analysis: the head-and-shoulders (H & S) formation. Although not all H & S patterns achieve their breakout projections, based on experience...

The music of forex.(Forex Trader)
February 1, 2005... In The Psychology of the Foreign Exchange Market, author Thomas Oberlechner provides the results of research into how professional traders view the markets. One approach he uses is to characterize these views with different metaphors....

Oil shock underway.(Market Strategy)
February 1, 2005... There are many arguments for a sustained increase in crude oil price that could push the market to $100 per barrel or more: The borrowing and speculation manias, the flood of dollars, the invasion of Iraq and technical analysis of oil price....

Dynamic doji is a clear trend reversal signal: the doji pattern offers some key insights to future price direction, if you know how to use it correctly. Here's how one candlestick expert uses dojis to forecast future price moves.(EQUITY TRADING TECHNIQUES)
February 1, 2005... The doji is one of the most revealing signals in candlestick trading. It clearly indicates that the bulls and the bears are at an equilibrium, a state of indecision. The doji, appearing at the end of an extended trend, has significant...

Think before you link stocks and commodities: common assumptions and some anecdotal evidence suggest that traders might better their returns if they focused on the companies dealing in commodities rather than the commodities themselves, but do the data support it?(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
February 1, 2005... In a gold rush, sell shovels. That advice, in one form or another, no doubt preceded the California gold rush, but is there a better illustration of this axiom than the relative profits of various '49ers and Levi Strauss, purveyor of blue jeans...

Adapting your system for non-linear markets: markets move in non-linear fashion, so your systematic trading strategies should be built to adapt to such changing conditions. Here's one approach that allows your strategies to evolve with the market.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
February 1, 2005... Nonlinear modeling is a process that enables the systematic exploitation of short-term market inefficiencies. This modeling process enables traders to adapt their systems to current market conditions, which is crucial to the long-term success...

Eye on China: trading the yuan revaluation; Current events in China potentially present forex traders with that rare combination: low risk, high reward. But the key word is "potentially." Here's what to expect.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
February 1, 2005... China has attracted a great deal of attention over the last several years from international businesses looking to participate in the incredible growth of its domestic economy. More recently, China has attracted the attention of a different...

Liquidity: lubricant of option selling; Many trades look great--in theory. Unfortunately, reality doesn't always follow theory. Before you attempt an option trade, you need to know there's a critical mass of market participation.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
February 1, 2005... So far in this series on option selling, we have looked at the general case for selling options: that time decay represents a real edge for the average trader if the risk is properly understood and managed. Last month we contrasted some...

Walking before you run with system optimization: this is the first installment of a series on the optimization of trading systems. In this series, we will discuss some of the issues that are involved with optimizing a system and overview three optimization strategies in use today.(TECHNOLOGY & TRADING)
February 1, 2005... Optimization can be a tool for good or evil. Before system development software became available to the public in the pre-personal computer days, ideas for trading systems had to be hand-tested in the chart books to see if they were likely to...

Trading more markets can mean more money: it's considerably unlikely you'll get rich quickly trading commodities, but you have a far better chance at getting rich slowly. To do that, however, you need your trading capital to last, and that means trading the right blend of markets suitable for the size of your trading account.(FUTURES 101)
February 1, 2005... One of the big questions for traders is whether it is better to trade a small number of markets with some measure of expertise or a large number of markets with no more than a general sense of how they work. This is especially difficult for...

Fishing for profits without indicators.(Online Trading)
February 1, 2005... While many program-teaching trading Web rooms promise the perfect combination of indicators to make you huge profits, one trader is promising results with no indicators. Steve Boyd, better known as Kingfish, a day trader of 25 years, with...

Like it or not, NASD limits trail commissions.(MANAGED MONEY)(National Association of Securities Dealers)
February 1, 2005... Public commodity pools have suffered by having to meet the demands of numerous regulators. The industry has sought reforms that would make commodity pools more viable, but now the NASD has limited what commodity pools can pay broker dealers....

2004 public funds returns (through December).(Funds Review)(Illustration)
February 1, 2005... Date Name of fund Trading advisor(s) Started U.S. Closed Alternative Asset Growth LP Multiple managers Mar-90 Dean Witter...

Futures without floors: jobs for non-traders; As exchange trading floors shrink, runners, phone clerks and floor managers who haven't already gone to night school are scrambling to become technologically savvy. Some may still be able to leverage their experience into jobs in the new futures industry.(TRADE TRENDS)
February 1, 2005... Linda Bracken knows exactly what she loves about the futures industry. "There is nothing standard about what happens from year-to-year," she says. "The pace of change is stimulating, and you are always dealing with smart people rather than with...

Tops & bottoms of 2004: the futures industry got a glimpse of its brave new world in 2004 and most participants liked it. Of course, there were the contrarians. Here is an off beat look at some of the events of last year.(TOPS & BOTTOMS)
February 1, 2005... Tops RECORD VOLUMES AGAIN! The top five futures exchanges all set volume records again in 2004. All sectors of the futures industry grew, including managed futures despite a tough environment for trend followers. FUTURES ON...

Contract dates.(Dateline)(Calendar)
February 1, 2005... 1 FND: BM & F Alcohol F, Sugar F. LTD: BM & F Alcohol OF, iBrX 50 F, Euronext-Liffe Mar White sugar OF. [TABLE OMITTED] 3 LTD: Safex Bonds F. 4 LTD: CME CME $ Index OF, Currencies OF, Live cattle OF, Pork bellies, frozen OF, Nybot...

Events coming up.(Calendar)
February 1, 2005... Call the numbers listed for more information. For other seminars, see the classifieds on pages 88-93. GARR 2005 6th Annual Convention and Exhibition. JAN. 31-FEB. 3. Marriot Marquis Hotel, New York. E-mail: katherine.barnes@garp.com....

Capping risk brings profits.(Trader Profile)
February 1, 2005... Joe Reynoso, principal of Reynoso Asset Management (RAM) and the investment manager for the Reynoso Options Arbitrage Fund, says the institutional world is scared by triple-digit returns. "If you're earning 100% or more per year, they're...