Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) articles from May 2007

Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) archives from May 2007

Gold fever.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
May 1, 2007... It seems this column should be devoted to the bull run in our precious metals, and indeed, many analysts believe those markets will continue their march upward (see "Is the end of easy money the end for metals?" page 24). However, I'd rather...

Merger on ICE? CBOT up for bidding war.(Trendlines)(Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Intercontinental Exchange at the Futures Industry Association conference)(Conference news)
May 1, 2007... The Futures Industry Association's (FIA) annual conference in Boca Raton, Fla. often is the launching pad of so-called big industry news but usually these announcement fail to inspire. This March the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) dropped a...

The next big thing? Credit where it's due.(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... The OTC market place is growing even faster than the exchange traded futures and options markets, and credit derivatives, which are intended to offer protection against credit events such as a failure to pay and bankruptcy, are the largest...

Find a partner: NYSE, Euronext connect.(NYSE Group Inc. merger)
May 1, 2007... With all the attention focused on the battle for the CBOT, it's easy to forget that European exchanges haven't quite finished their own jostling for position on the global trading stage. In April, NYSE/Euronext completed its trans-Atlantic...

Now there are two: portfolio margin charge.(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... Penson Financial Services Inc., became the second broker approved for portfolio margining joining Fimat. Cynthia Zeltwanger, Fimat USA president and CEO, says, "We are ready from a system standpoint; we do have a first mover advantage."

Correction.(Correction notice)
May 1, 2007... "Joint venture exchanges deliver the goods," April 2007, should have said the Joint Asian Derivatives Exchange will launch its crude palm oil contract in the future. Futures regrets the error.

Chartview: grind it out.(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... After losing half of the U.S. gold futures market to the upstart CBOT's metals complex, the New York Mercantile Exchange and its metals division, Comex, finally came to terms and agreed to launch electronic trading of the Comex metals complex...

Trading traders: USFE launches contracts on CBOT merger.(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... The United States Futures Exchange (USFE) has launched binary event futures (BEF) that allow traders to take a "yes" or "no" position on whether or not an event will take place on or by a specified date, starting with contracts based on whether...

Refco trial moves forward: Grant in the know?(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... In response to Tone N. Grant's, former president of Refco Inc. request for a separate trial and assertion that he was a minor participant in the fraud at Refco, prosecutors have detailed some of the case that they are bringing against Grant....

Boca bits and bites.(Trendlines)
May 1, 2007... "Everything for us is a rule, I would like to be treated like an adult."--CBOE Chairman and CEO Bill Brodsky on the SEC regulatory structure for introducing new products. "MiFID has demonstrated that 27 States can come up with an...

Becks to lead Campbell team.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Terri Becks was named president and CEO of Campbell & Co., where she has been chief financial officer for 16 years and a board member for 13. Previously she was chief financial officer of Bank Maryland Corporation and a CPA with Ernst & Young....

International Securities Exchange Holdings Inc.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... International Securities Exchange Holdings Inc. announced that Gary Katz will succeed CEO David Krell in January. Krell will retire and become chairman of the board. Katz is currently chief operating officer.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Ianthe Jackson Zabel is now director of external affairs for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Previously she was communications director for the House Ways and Means Committee.

optionsXpress Holdings Inc.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... David Fisher is now president of optionsXpress Holdings Inc. Previously he was chief financial officer. Also, Adam DeWitt will be chief financial officer, previously he was vice president of finance.

New York Mercantile Exchange Inc.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Daniel Goldfisher is now vice president and counsel for the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. Previously he was with Clifford Chance US LLP.

London Metal Exchange.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Robert Hall was promoted to head of physical operations at the London Metal Exchange.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Kevin Murphy, managing director of Citigroup Global Markets Inc.'s U.S. broker dealer sales, was elected to the board at the The Chicago Board Options Exchange.

LCH.Clearnet Ltd.(Trading Places)
May 1, 2007... Peter Shepherd is now managing director of commercial services at LCH.Clearnet Ltd. Previously he worked at Atos Euronext Market Solutions and Euronext.liffe.

FSA welcomes alternatives.(Managed Money Review)
May 1, 2007... While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is attempting to limit the pool of investors able to access certain alternative investments, the United Kingdom's financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), is seeking to allow...

Yen carried lower.(Hot Commodities)(valuation)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Rod David, president of Avidtrader.com is bearish the yen. Back in January he noticed a "reverse descending triangle," one that begins at its apex and expands to include three lows at 0.8350. "It's a bearish pattern; interesting because it says...

Short covering fuels rally.(Hot Commodities)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... As the S & P 500 reeled from the late February early March correction, few predicted the market would bounce back so aggressively, adding almost 80 points, worth $40,000, since March 14. "There was so much sell pressure," says Larry Levin,...

Sweets for the sweet.(Hot Commodities)
May 1, 2007... Cocoa has been one of the darlings of 2007, says James Cordier, head trader at Liberty Trading. "And if you believe in the commodity bull run, it has the best fundamentals: smaller production in 2007 and insatiable demand. That's a recipe for...

Creamed corn.(Hot Commodities)
May 1, 2007... Corn was already in a downward correction when the USDA planting intention report, released in March, indicated a planting intention of 90 million acres, a 12 million acre increase over last year, causing a limit down move. "If they...

Options strategy.(risk strategies during high volatility)
May 1, 2007... Question: What strategy can offset the added risk in a position during a period of high volatility? Answer: The vertical spread It is a particularly good time to look at strategies to offset volatility risk because implied volatility...

Is the end of easy money the end for metals? A rising tide of liquidity has quietly flooded value into precious metals, an asset class not traditionally known for market-beating performance. Now, more than five years into the "metals bull," early signs of slowing growth and tighter money could threaten the longevity of this strong upward move.(MARKETS)(Cover story)
May 1, 2007... In 2006, gold, up 23%, and silver, up 45%, both soundly outperformed the S & P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which improved 13.6% and 19% respectively. In fact, despite the attention paid to last winter's record-breaking highs in...

Tech talk: appearances can be deceiving.(MARKETS)(Chart)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... This weekly silver chart immediately suggests the current five overlapping upward waves are part of a corrective pattern, needing an additional move up. Expectations for new highs in silver depend upon a corrective ABC pattern having developed...

Getting started: lessons from a trader.(Forex Trader)
May 1, 2007... Forex traders are not born, they evolve. Successful traders have many things in common. They have applied knowledge, developed timing skills, can recognize repeatable patterns and the ability to modify their trading strategies based on trial...

Trading stocks with Fibonacci and Lucas: for many traders, only time-proven strategies will do. Two techniques that have proven themselves through decades are Fibonacci analysis and the Lucas Time Series. But key to using them effectively in individual stocks and the broader market is to know when they're validated.(EQUITY TRADING TECHNIQUES)
May 1, 2007... Navigating a correction is similar to flying through a storm cloud. Everyone on board has confidence they'll get through it, even if they have no idea how it will happen. In complex corrections, most traders are like the passengers on that...

A new trick for an old indicator: most technical traders have heard of the Trin, which simply reports the volume of advancing issues compared to that of declining issues, but most do not know how to effectively exploit it in their trading. Here is a simple approach for using the Trin to capture short-term moves.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
May 1, 2007... The Trin is one of the most widely followed market timing indicators is the Trin. It can be found reported on and discussed in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, and on the Web and charting...

Embracing the option hedge: the easiest way to deal with a losing trade is simply to offset it. However, this is one case where the simplest solution isn't always the best. Here, we look at some sophisticated ways to manage option trades.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
May 1, 2007... After presenting several trading techniques in the context of two short-option strategies in "Understanding options," April 2007, here we'll expand our resources for managing the trade after it is in place. A common theme of many options...

Understanding demand in cash-based metals: through time, the fundamentals are what move the cash prices of commodity markets, but the fundamentals that matter are not always what conventional wisdom says. Here's a look at what is important in gold and other metals.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
May 1, 2007... Focusing on short-term commodity price trends, many investors and other market observers conclude that fundamentals do not affect prices, and that prices are determined primarily by speculative trading activities. These observations and...

Getting real with forex: if you're late in trading, you're losing. But to monitor fast markets in real time takes immediate processing of high-volume data feeds. This computing power has been slow to come to forex, but new technologies are making it a reality.(TECHNOLOGY & TRADING)(Foreign exchange)
May 1, 2007... Sophisticated analysis of real-time, low-frequency data requires speed. Without this low-latency processing of high volume data feeds, along with the historical databases that support it, the strategies just can't keep up. This is a particular...

Burning at both ends: some analysis of Japanese candlesticks can get overly complex and lost in translation. If you don't yet know a doji from a hammer don't fret; here's a simple look at candles, what the different types mean and how to use them to help determine your entries and exits.(FUTURES 101)
May 1, 2007... Japanese candlestick charts date all the way back to the eighteenth century Japanese rice markets, but don't think for a minute that today's electronic traders can't learn a trick or two from this earliest form of technical analysis. Despite...

Testing your trading system.(Online Trading)
May 1, 2007... Once you have built your trading system, you must test it before putting money at risk. CTA Joe Krutsinger, who has developed more than 700 trading systems, put it this way, "Before you can go somewhere, you have to know where you want to go."...

Thinking of becoming a CTA or CPO? While not necessarily scintillating material, it is important to know the regulatory ropes involved in creating a futures based advisory before jumping into the fray.(MANAGED MONEY)
May 1, 2007... The growing interest in alternative investments in recent years has enhanced the demand for Commodity Pool Operators (CPOs) and Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). A growing number of CPOs and CTAs have been created to meet that demand. If you...

Chicago Board Options Exchange.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... The Chicago Board Options Exchange began publishing the CBOE S & P 500 VARB-X Strategy Benchmark (VTY) in March. The index tracks the performance of a hypothetical volatility arbitrage trading strategy designed to capitalize on the historical...

Philadelphia Stock Exchange.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) began trading nine new options on March 13: Datalink Corp., CyberSource Corp., Blackbaud Inc., ASE Test Limited, Apogee Enterprises, Internap Network Services Corp., GSI Commerce Inc., First Cash Financial...

Chicago Mercantile Exchange.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will begin trading Credit Index Event contracts in May. The contract include 32-investment grade, high volatility reference entities, selected based on their credit rating. www.cme.com/creditevent. The CME...

New York Mercantile Exchange.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... The New York Mercantile Exchange will list three additional years of the June and December contracts for heating oil futures and crude oil futures and options contracts for the trade date of April 16. www.nymex.com.

Dow Jones Newswires.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... Dow Jones and Nymex have launched daily newsletters for energy and metals market participants offering market data, market recaps and feature stories from Dow Jones Newswires. www.djnewsletters.com.

U.S. Futures Exchange.(EXCHANGES)
May 1, 2007... The U.S. Futures Exchange will list Binary Event Futures to let investors take a position on the fate of the Chicago Board of Trade merger proposals. www.usfe.com.

PHLX.(INDEXES)
May 1, 2007... PHLX launched the PHLX Marine Shipping Index, reflecting the performance of publicly listed seaborne transportation companies. Also, PHLX will begin trading broad-based index options on the Russell family of benchmark stock indexes....

Eurex.(INDEXES)
May 1, 2007... Eurex now trades three new credit index futures, including the future based on the iTraxx Europe 5-year, the iTraxx HiVol 5-year and iTraxx Crossover 5-year indices. www.eurexchange.com.

BT Radianz.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... BT Radianz, has launched Radianz Ultra Access, a high speed, ultra low latency connectivity between exchanges and brokers in the New York metropolitan area. The service allows transaction speeds of one millisecond between local market...

Patsystems.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... Patsystems now offers connectivity to the CBOE Futures Exchange LLC and will access all CFE products, including futures on the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), CBOE DJIA Volatility Index (VXD), CBOE S & P 500 Three- and Twelve-Month Variance and...

Secrets of Traders.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... Secrets of Traders' new live trading Chat Room allows customers to share trading experiences with fellow traders and offers morning briefings, live question and answer sessions, private messaging and live audio and video....

CQG.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... CQG will route orders to the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), which launches on May 1. The connection will provide CQG customers with market data and order routing access for DME's Middle East sour crude oil products. www.cqg.com.

OptionsXpress.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... OptionsXpress has created several new tools and features for its users, including the ability to place one-cancels-other (OCO) orders on spreads, the ability to view positions by strategy and advanced charting and technical tools....

eSpeed Inc.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 1, 2007... eSpeed Inc. now connects to the Eurex Socket Data Feed. Designed for algorithmic and automated traders, the data feed distributes un-netted price chains for order book depth in real-time. The feed gives EccoPro users data across all trading...

2007 public funds returns (through March 31).(Funds Review)(Statistical table)
May 1, 2007... Unit Starting value Change Trading Date unit through for Name of fund advisor(s) started...

Automated trading: an exchange's best friend; Ten years after Germany's screen-based Deutsche Terminboerse took the Bund volume away from the floor-based Liffe, sophisticated algorithms have established themselves as the new locals--generating tighter bid-offer spreads than ever before and enabling the migration of OTC trading to exchanges.(TRADE TRENDS)
May 1, 2007... Peter Green has been there from the start. The company he runs, Kyte Group Ltd., opened its first trading arcade in 1997 with roughly 30 former floor traders from the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe). "We...

VectorVest Online v6.0 VectorVest Inc.(Software Review)(Product/service evaluation)
May 1, 2007... VectorVest Online v6.0 VectorVest Inc. 20472 Chartwell Center Drive Cornelius, NC 28031 (888) 658-7638; (704) 895-4095 E-mail: sales@vectorvest.com Web site: www.vectorvest.com OVERALL RATING: Excellent LEVEL:...

Contract dates.(Dateline)(Calendar)
May 1, 2007... 1 LTD: Nybot Orange juice OF. [TABLE OMITTED] 2 LTD: BM & F Alcohol OF, CME Apr Weather F. 3 LTD: CBOT Ethanol F, CME Apr Mid-sized milk OF, Apr Milk F,OF. 4 LTD: CME Frozen pork bellies OF, Butter FO, Butter OF, Currencies...

Events coming up.(Calendar)
May 1, 2007... Call the numbers listed for more information. For other seminars, see the classifieds on pages 69-73. Fund of Funds Business Operations Forum. MAY 1-2. The New York Helmsley, New York, New York. www.frallc.com. (800) 280-8440. GAIM...

Capricorn FX: tested methods that work.(Trader Profile)
May 1, 2007... For Mikkel Thorup and his two partners at Swiss-Danish currency group Capricorn FX, trading is neither fancy nor avant-garde. "We're not trying to do neural networks or things like that," he says. "We just find what works and get to work." ...