Recent content by bd10

First dabble in stocks at 16, then there was the tech bubble and it was "not terribly difficult to make money in the securities business" to quote Peter Baring. Discovered emerging market bonds and equity options and was going for 50+% pa. Pure greed. No idea what risk was. Learned that later at...

Regarding Trump, Democrats don't have a credible/strong enough candidate to compete with. Bit of war-mongering or stoking in the fire a bit like last week is good for rounding voters behind the leader. Mind you, Kim Jong Un did the same thing when he took over office to strengthen his position...

bid/ask spreads are a function of many things, size of market, time of day/week, outside announcements impending, volatility in more general terms just to name a few. size of bids and offers are another aspect not to ignore. The question is, what is your objective when looking at bid/ask spreads?

Sigma, to add what bone said, spreads are also great in as far as you can create new spread positions by trading spread combinations. Suppose you're long H20/M20, if you were to buy M20/Z20, then you'd be long H20/Z20, get more exposure across the curve. Or you can reverse the position: adding a...

While I am not familiar with the energy complex, in the agri-space, spreads are mainly fundamental but can also be sometimes technical. Technical in the sense of a short term shortage in the front months. Fundamental factors can be the time within crop cycle, inventory levels (commercial and...

Also depends on strategy. Some spreads for example can move very slowly, so you might be in a trade for weeks, even months while it unfolds.

In my eyes, gold is a funny one. It can serve as hedge when equities crash/get sold off for a few months. I looked at the past 8 downturns and gold did well during these episodes, equally if not better than bonds. But this is not to suggest to hold gold over the long term. That's a different...

@pela78 in your initial post you wrote "It is not, and never has been or ever will be a good idea to tell people when to buy or sell, because once you enter a trade, your emotions take over, and it is these emotions that will impede the trader." How's that? So you're suggesting not to use...

In a back-test setting, edge is how far away a strategy's P&L has been from randomness (after all transaction costs are taken into account), i.e. statistical significance. The p-value is conceptually little different from a sharpe ratio. So it is not only a positive expected value but also...

I got the SOFR contract now. Was the wording of the rules that confused the heck out of me, hence my stupid question. Sorry. Liquidity is still thin in calendar spreads. Done a test trade, just a calendar spread. For spreading against GE, I'll wait with that a little.

I agree with what you're saying. Sorry for not being clearer in my previous post. What I was referring to was this: the SOFR contract is backward looking in the sense that its settlement price is based on the compounding of the actually observed daily overnight rates for the 3 months leading up...

Hi bone, thanks for opening this thread. Also thanks for the link to the CME document on spreading the 3m SOFR vs ED. If I am going the wording of the contract specs and exchange rule 460, maybe I am being silly for overlooking something, but I think there is some inconsistency. Rule 460...

UK here

my account reads: current cash balance + open trade equity = total equity = margin excess + initial margin requirement

Trading US time zone from Europe. CME halts trading between 10 and 11pm local time. Peak volume afternoon, then tailing off into early evening. Suits me well for position trading, does not interfere with sleep. or life outside in general. Could not do Aussie/EAsian time zone from here.