Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) articles from November 2008

Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) archives from November 2008

Smartest guys in the room?(EDITOR'S NOTE)
November 1, 2008... The October rout of the stock market and the bailout plan reminded me of a line in the movie "Armageddon." In the movie, Earth was being threatened by a killer meteor, and NASA was trying to determine how to destroy the rock before it hit. One...

Rescuing the bailout.(EVERYONE UNDER THE TARP)
November 1, 2008... To say the first iteration of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan was poorly received understates the case. In a closed-door meeting, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) reportedly referred to the bill as...

Energy spec bill passes.(CONGRESS STRIKES BACK)
November 1, 2008... The legislative game of ping pong over energy speculation continued on Sept. 18 when the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6604, The Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008, which aims to prevent manipulation and...

Europe pays price.(SUBPRIME MESS HITS EUROPE)
November 1, 2008... In Europe, the situation unfolded slowly, as bankers and leaders first said the continent was immune to Anglo-American excess. London swaps dealers were called into the office on the weekend of the Lehman implosion to make sure all of their...

China open, Europe closed.(SHORTS HEARD AROUND THE WORLD)
November 1, 2008... The restrictions on short selling of U.S. listed financial equities initiated by the SEC in September were in tune with similar bans in Europe and Australia, while China took a different route. On Sept. 18, just prior to the announcement of...

Sound off!
November 1, 2008... NEW RULES We have found some inaccuracies in your Futures magazine article, "The Forex Story: Only The Strong Survive", specifically in the section called "Who's Got $20 Mil?". The sentence that reads "The CFTC has always had the right...

Correction.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2008... Gary Tilkin is the correct spelling of the name of the head of Global Forex Trading. It was misspelled in the October 2008 Forex Story. We regret the error.

Manrique named CEO of Stoxx Limited.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2008... Ricardo Manrique was named CEO of Stoxx Limited. Previously, he worked in Latin American derivatives sales and structuring at Standard Bank Plc. "Ricardo's great experience in index development, structured products and the derivatives...

Volatility explodes.(Managed Money Review)
November 1, 2008... Volitilty exploded across the board in October, but particularly in equities after the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP. Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer for fund of fund Clearbrook Research, gave his take on the...

Crude's slip and slide.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2008... The global economic slowdown has cut the legs from under crude oil prices, which have fallen to $88 per barrel in early October from a high of $147.27 on July 11. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] "If we are still in this panicked fearful uncertain...

Market says uncle.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2008... In a sickening slide, the S&P 500 plunged to 837 in early October from 1277 on Sept. 2. "It looks like a market in virtual free fall," says John Welsh, SVP of Peregrine Financial Group. And as it declines, it erodes buying power and confidence....

Yen on the move.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2008... After a decade as the weak sister of major currencies, the Japanese yen has greatly strengthened against the U.S. dollar. "There's not a fundamental reason for this. It's more a trading dynamic," says Brain Dolan, research director for Gain...

Show me the "real" money.(Market Strategy)
November 1, 2008... While gold has had serious and painful corrections in the current bull market, when reality sets in, monies will flow to a standard that the world recognizes. Paper currencies are inherently and constantly in flux. The variables are so diverse...

Market turmoil and the U.S. dollar.(Forex Trader)
November 1, 2008... The turmoil on Wall Street began over a year ago and has grown to become the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. Its core causes are many, but the key role complex derivatives played in obscuring the ability of the market...

Scything up the grain markets: in spring, grain markets were literally and figuratively hit by a perfect storm. tight supply, aggravated by inflation and weather concerns, propelled futures prices to all-time highs in July. Now comes harvest. Will grain prices come back down to earth?(MARKETS)
November 1, 2008... During planting season, the grain situation looked grim. Inventories were perilously low and large agricultural production areas were drought stricken. In the Midwestern United States, cold wet weather delayed corn and soybean planting, then...

Great bailout of 2008: what's next?
November 1, 2008... Never has an economic event played out over such an excruciatingly long time frame as the subprime crisis and resultant credit crunch. Signs that credit markets were in trouble began in July 2007, ever since investment banks began a slow drip...

Regulation and the credit crisis.(Bailout)
November 1, 2008... The collapse on Wall Street set off a regulatory firestorm in Washington, and the futures and options industries were shaken by the SEC's temporary ban on short selling for 799 financial companies on Sept. 19. The SEC's rule followed in the...

Sold short.(Bailout)
November 1, 2008... It's Monday Sept. 22. The week before, Lehman Brothers shocked the financial world by declaring bankruptcy and sent the markets into an epileptic siezure. But for me and the hedge fund I work for, things couldn't be better. Volatility is on the...

Clearing the air.(Bailout)
November 1, 2008... When exchange clearing members come under stress, the clearinghouse gets active, so we talked to Kim Taylor, managing director and president of CME Clearing House Division, to see what steps were taken once Lehman Brothers Holdings declared...

I New tools for spread trading: equity pairs trading effectively creates a new market from two, exploiting the difference between issues rather than their absolute values. Copulas are a relatively new field of statistical analysis that offer a new way to study equity spreads for those not intimidated by this exciting frontier.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
November 1, 2008... Copulas are tools for modeling the dependence between random variables, The word copula is derived from the Latin word copulare, meaning to connect or to join. Only recently has this theory found its was into statistics and even more recently...

Spreading the wealth: the volatility in the grain market is creating opportunities of a generation for savvy traders. However, not everyone has the bankroll to get involved. Spreads may be the way.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
November 1, 2008... In the last five years in the world of commodity resources, few sectors have moved as quickly into the mainstream consciousness as the agricultural and soft commodity markets. This is for good reason. Grains in particular have experienced one...

I Options redux: 25 years into the revolution; About 25 years ago when index options were being introduced, we presented a unique indicator using dollar-weighted options data. This indicator, the CPFL, has proven prescient during some of the most remarkable market moves over the last quarter century.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
November 1, 2008... On March 11. 1983, a revolution in trading began when the Chicago Board Options Exchange introduced the CBOE 100 Index. That first cash settled index, which soon morphed into the famed S&P 100 just months after the onset of the greatest bull...

Better than average: moving averages provide a good estimate of the ongoing trend, but in some cases, the information they provide is too general for the typical trader. However, combined with Fibonacci analysis, moving averages can provide some specific direction to market moves.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
November 1, 2008... An average is designed to give the user a fair representation of the scope or quality of a larger group of numbers. A college graduate will be interested in the average starting salary of a job in his or her particular industry. A general...

Navigating markets in the age of index funds; the massive influx of capital into commodity futures from index funds has changed some basic market relationships and created both opportunities and dangers. We will examine the opportunities provided by this capital and show you methods to exploit it as well as help you avoid danger.(TRADING TECHNIQUES)
November 1, 2008... In the world of commodity trading, long only commodity funds (LOCF), or index funds as they are otherwise known, have come to dominate the futures industry through both their sheer position sizes and the constant swirl of discussion surrounding...

Noise annoys: How moving averages can help: moving averages cut through the chatter, smoothing out insignificant short-term price fluctuations and highlighting what really matters: the short-, intermediate-or long-term trend. Here, we look at the basics of how to calculate moving averages, how to apply them and how to modify them.(FUTURES)
November 1, 2008... Sometimes, it's hard to see where the market is headed. It drives higher, only to fall back. Price might careen wildly sideways, ultimately ending several points higher or lower. Amid such madness, while markets churn and spike, retreat and...

Systematic approach.(FUTURES)
November 1, 2008... Trading systems are collections of rules for buying and selling commodities and stocks. As useful trend-identifying techniques, moving averages are common elements in trading systems. Conventional interpretation of a moving average would...

Is this managed futures' time to shine? Managed futures tend to perform best during difficult times in equity markets. While that is holding true from a performance perspective, the current crisis is so extreme that it is hard to tell whether there will be any winners from an allocation standpoint.(MANAGED MONEY)
November 1, 2008... One of the selling points for managed futures has always been their use as a diversification from traditional equity and bond portfolios. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that managed futures not only are non-correlated to equities but...

I Japan: Chicago Cubs of futures? It's hard to imagine a more developed economy with a more disappointing futures segment than Japan, whose once regionally dominant exchanges stood still as India and China steamed ahead. Die-hard fans, however, say 2009 is going to be the year Japan gets it together--a refrain familiar to many in Chicago.(TRADE TRENDS)
November 1, 2008... "Being a Cubs fan is like being in an abusive relationship," says Cubs fan Mary Lou. "You keep thinking, 'They're going to change! They're going to get better... "' And they do get better--frustratingly so, tantalizingly so, painfully...

The new arms race and the coming revolution.(Online Trading)
November 1, 2008... Back in the old days, runners, the people who grabbed orders and ran them into the pits where trades were executed, were called the "wheels on the bus," and speed was of paramount importance. Today that responsibility falls to the software,...

Contract dates.(Calendar)
November 1, 2008... 3 LTD: BM&F Alcohol OF, Euronext-Liffe Dec White Sugar Of 5 LTD: CBOT Ethanol F, Euronext-Liffe Corn F 10 LTD: BM&F Sugar F, Alcohol F, Euronext-Liffe Milling Wheat F, Nybot Orange juice F, Sugar #14 F 11 LTD: Nymex Dec Russian...

Events coming up.
November 1, 2008... Visit the Web sites listed for more information. For other seminars. see the classifieds on pages 77-81. FIA Futures & Options Expo 2008. Nov.10-12, 2008. Hyatt Regency Chicago. www.futuresindustry.org CTA Expo. Nov. 11, 2008. Hotel...

Herbert: taking the heat.(Trader Profile)
November 1, 2008... Phillip Herbert's theory on the market is simple-if you want to make money, you have to withstand the heat. He and his partner Alan Zenk liked this theory so much that they named two of their managed programs, Shadrach and Abednego, after a...