The Bear

I'm looking for end of day data for HKSE listings...Daily & Weekly charts. Can anyone recommend a vendor BESIDES eSignal?

OK, thanks everyone., this helps explain for sure. Now I have something to look forward too this summer instead of watching maria bartiromo all day...although that wouldn't be so bad. I'm bullish on Erin Burnett lately.

I've been taught to ease up on trading during the summer. Has anyone actually read any hard evidence or statistics that show lower odds for traders in the summer? Is this a pure myth or any truth to it? If it is true, why?

This is a real bull market. Even if speculation is abnormally high causing drastic corrections and huge swings, this doesn't mean it's a bubble. The fact is China is growing and it's not going to stop any time soon.

word....thanks

I don't think I've ever seen a STOP MARKET order go green. If it isn't green, I'm pretty sure it's not native. The only orders i've seen go green are LIMIT orders, and these are held natively on the exchange. Have you seen your STOP MARKET orders go green? Note that I only trade on NYMEX, NYSE, ECBOT. I've checked and of the ones I list here, STOP MARKET for ECBOT might be exchange native for IB, but I need to confirm. The orders don't go green, but when they are BLUE, for ECBOT, it may mean it is native.

Does anyone incorporate fundamental analysis with their ag trading...and if you do, do you think it increases the net profit of your system? Any good results with seasonality studies?

I don't stay away, I've been in big moves on fridays and even bigger moves on Mondays.

Note guys that IB does not provide native stops in pretty much all the markets we trade. TradeStation I doubt provides native stops, they don't even have GTC orders for any futures...how pathetic is that. I found a broker called OPEN E CRY and they claim to offer exchange native orders. I'm curious if anyone has used them for order execution or knows how well capitalized the corporation is.

Hey..i'm an oil & gas scalper. I'm not sure if you said LESS THAN 1 or GREATER THAN 1 above...I'm not good at math. If you meant LESS THAN 1, yes it's possible, I do it all the time and make money at the end of the month. I think it's hard to find people to tell you HOW to do it, because it's something you have to just do to learn. Nobody taught me how to scalp, I don't know if it's even possible to learn from someone. I'm sort of protective of my operations...even though I know it's silly and lame to be like this (maybe I have low self esteem?) I probably know nothing of value to you...but you may want to check my previous posts since I may have said stuff about it, and you could try messaging the guy Cooter - I think he's a grain scalper and his posts are somewhat interesting. Scalping is very demanding and cut throat, and if you are wrong, your losses grow out of control very quick. I think I recall experiencing 10 losing trades in a row...step carefully or the commissions & losses will chew away at your account very fast....like termites. That being said I think you should consider it. Start off as small as you possibly can. >Who has expierience with scalping (target 2-6 ticks) I may be wrong, but scalping I don't think is about how many ticks, it's about the hold time. Someone maybe trading off a 2-min chart going for 6 ticks over a span of minutes, but I don't consider this scalping. I feel the gambling element is somewhat higher in scalping. I risk alot more to make small quick gains. It's very close to gambling in my opinion. I think scalping originated from local floor speculators (commodity exchange floor gamblers)...but it's possible as a public speculator to do it in almost any market...thanks to direct access trading. Send me a message in the future if I can possibly help you.

Great thread guys. Hey cooter it's all about the momentum now....have you been trading RBOB? I'm bullish on henry hub too...for the moment. I've been missing alot of action on CL though since i've been stuck entertaining a girl. I come back and look at the days end and my jaw drops. Now is the time though.... Good old HAL even looks like it might be turning.

Yeah it's tough for a bear on the dow. I'm more of a bear when I trade YM than a bull, it's tough to be a bear in this market. Since I don't watch it that closely, when the sell off days happen, and they happen rarely these days, sometimes it's too late for me to short by the time I see it happening. 2005 was a good time for bears on the dow...even the first half of 2006. NEED MORE PAIN

Guys forget the cow dung & hay...did you see oil today? (re: cooter)

Anyone bearish on the dow lately or soon? All I got once was 1 sell off day last week. I've been trading YM a bit lately (short only - intraday), and I'm concerned about taking swing (overnight) longs at this point. Would I be getting in at the end of the party? On the daily YM is pure arching the sky in a perfect line since APR. How long could it go like this without another her big correction? I don't know the index futures like you guys because I don't watch them closely, but how long can one of these perfect rallies last? On one of the small corrections could we end up with a beautiful crash like FEB? I don't buy that it was a technical 'problem' that caused the 500 pt drop in FEB. I think it was real....500 points is not un-reasonable.

>The thing about oil, is that there is relatively little left. In my opinion I'm not sure that the problem is there is little left, it's more about production capacity right now....it's becomming more and more difficult to keep up with the demand. We can't produce it fast enough. It's not that the reserves in the ground have little left, nobody knows exactly how much is left, and we'll never know. Although the peak oil theory proves reserves will ultimately diminish (and just common sense), nobody knows exactly where we are, and even if we are at the peak of the production curve, theres still a long ways on the downward slope. Many many years. To keep the world dependent on oil is important in my opinion

I forgot to say, STOP LIMIT orders also work fine for me in the TS account for entries and I usually don't get bypassed even in fast markets.

I've maybe done 50-100 CL (1-2 contacts at a time) trades in the tradestation account, and I've had 1 tick of slippage on 2 separate occasions. In my opinion the order entry system works well for what I do. I Don't use the tradestation account for gas trading, but my records show I had 1 tick of slippage on a mini natural gas trade for 1 contract. I've maybe done 20 mini gas trades in it. It also worked fine. Here and there I get slippage of 1 tick on my exits but it is in my favour (limit orders).

I too never got much from paper trading. I like to put a little something on the line to make it real. Regarding Tradestation, I've used it quite a bit and it works fine for trading 1 YM contract. I rarely get slippage on the stops (STOP MARKET), maybe 1 tick of slippage on 100 trades. I use limit orders for entry and it works fine.

I think it's very doable with a 5K account, but just stick to trading 1 contract for the next year. I checked my records for you, in my first year as a speculator I had a drawdown in the account of 8.2%, so according to my records I did not blow up the account, this included commission fees. This was mainly trading the YM short term. That was about 300 round turn trades. If you are disciplined, you can minimize blowing up any accounts the first year. Don't get obsessed with making money or your 20 points per day. If you can break even in the first year or two for futures (including commissions), you probably have a bright future.

Depending on the market your trading, can anything be discerned from looking at the relationship in price between the spot months and future months? I notice for almost everything I trade (even bear markets) that the further months are always positively priced ahead of the spot month, I've never seen it the other way around.

Thanks guys but can you further clarify something. I've pulled more info off the CBOT site regarding the SOYBEAN MEAL contract: ------ 1008.01A Trading Limits The Crude Soybean Oil and Soybean Meal Committee has been asked to interpret the following sentence: "These provisions (trading limits) shall not apply to trading in the current month on or after the first notice day thereof." The question that arises is whether this means the first business day of the delivery month or the first notice day of the contract which would be the last business day of the previous month. The Committee is of the opinion that it is the intention of the Regulations that the meaning of the sentence includes the first notice day which is the last business day of the month preceding the delivery month. 36R (09/01/94) ------ Cooter, see the sentence that reads (in your e-mail pulled from the Soybean Meal Contract Specifications): No limit in the spot month (limits are lifted beginning on First Position Day). Does it actually mean, daily limits are in effect during the spot month before the First Position Day of that spot month? When it just says "No limit in the spot month" - this is only covering the time between the First Position Day and the Last Trade Date right? I find this a bit confusing. That same statement is present for pretty much all the ags on CBOT.

I've been trying to find out the lock limit information on some CBOT contracts - namely SOYBEAN MEAL. Here's what I found on CORN Daily Price Limit Twenty cent ($0.20) per bushel ($1,000/contract) above or below the previous day's settlement price. No limit in the spot month (limits are lifted beginning on First Position Day). What doesn't make sense to me, is it says "No limit in the spot month", yet i've heard in the news of corn going limit down recently. How exactly do I find out what contracts lock and which ones don't. (Note that I only trade the front month contracts)

Nice screenshots - i'll pay for the CBOT data I guess next month, maybe watch them during the day. What i'm really looking forward to is ICE. All the NYBOT commodities are now listed electronic....since ICE bought out NYBOT. Your system looks INTENSE and hardcore, I have no idea what that stuff is. I don't understand what alot of you talk about on this forum, for example I don't know what a straddle is, and my eyes glaze over when I hear about options. The most advanced thing I know about is the TICK & TRIN...and those I'm still iffy if they actually make me any money. I have a very basic low tech system. It mostly consists of capitalist brainwashing morals I rehearse before I go into the oil markets to take other peoples money away from them. One thing I don't understand is why you use the number for ticks. Why not just do 100 ticks. What's the benefit of these odd numbers? Can you somehow act before other people do?

Ya sometimes you have to go for the throat....it's how we make the huge gains. I don't like that feeling in my stomach though, when I over leverage myself, all it would take is one freak incident and I'm a gonner...I'll be working at wendy's for the rest of my life I find my heart beats so rapidly at these times I can't think logically. >I'm rather myopic about the grains. Don't really care where it's headed after >the day is over. >Keeps me from forming opinions about where I think the market is going, when >all I really need to focus upon is where the market is taking me each day. You mean it's possible to actually trade these things intra-day? I always thought ags was mostly overnight trading. Maybe I gotta check it out one day. From what I remembered I looked at the intra-day charts and they were full of gaps, holes, and mess.

9 ticks, that's pretty nice. Do you trade the initial spike or stand aside.