Recent content by jimbohanna

Also scarrtrading.com is a great site to look at all sorts of seasonal spread activity going back 30 years or more. It's a subscription site, but corn and crude oil you can do for free to get a feel for it.

My only regret is that I didn't push all the chips into the middle of the table when it happened. I guess the volitility had me spooked, and I figured if it could go a bit negative, it go a lot. As it is, the few spreads I put on have made me some good money so far...

Check out this chart: http://futuresource.quote.com/charts/charts.jsp?s=%3D%27XRB%27%20*%2042%20-%20%27CL%27&o=&a=M&z=800x550&d=HIGH&b=bar&st= First time ever that the front month Gasoline - Crude crack spread is negative. At this rate, refiners will be buying gas and turning it back into...

Check out this site: http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,2144,00.html#3 Scroll down to "Intra crop year spreads" - they have the marketing years for all the cbot commodities.

You really expect the new crop to turn up that high again, prof? Are global supplies really that depleted? (Just asking - you seem to know more about this than I do...)

Good weather doesn't help the grain that was already harvested. But the the good weather we got last week (a nice blanket of snow to put the shoots to bed for the winter) has knocked the stuffing out of the new crop july contract. Heaven help anyone who was playing the seasonal jul/mar spread...

Interesting - any particular reason for the wide spread, as opposed to just, say, spreading 8 GEH8 against 8 GEH9? Does that smooth the action out?

Yes, margins are cheaper - but commissions are not. Everyplace I have seen charges you full price for both legs (if anyone knows anyplace that doesn't, please let me know!) But in the modern era, commish is so low that someone doing position trades (which is that only way to trade spreads, as...

Prof logic - I was wondering if you had any thoughts on soybean spreads. What with tight stocks and a big crush, you'd think that we could be in for a repeat of the great '73 jul-nov spread runup. But with corn and wheat both under stress as well, the new crop of beans might not be as...

Mike - Thanks for the analysis. Do you think the same factors will lead to opportunities in bean spreads as well?

FWIW, the seasonal chart on that BO trade has an entry on Nov. 18. I was waiting for it, and I was surprised when I saw you had gotten in...

You gotta love the reflexive ET conspiracy mongering. Especially when you can see, on the monthly chart, that we are at the seasonal low and the cracks are as low today as they were in previous years. Still, I'd say buying the cracks, especially the rb/cl, is a good trade: I always prefer to...

The whole grain complex is crazy. I bought a dec corn/dec wheat spread today, since it's blown out almost a hundred points farther than any historical level. Of course, craziness has a way of going farther than you'd ever think, but I think its a pretty good bet...

Forgive a dumb question, but don't the contract specs specify a certain quality of grain? So regardless of the state of most of the KC crop, aren't you really trading two different kinds of grain at similar quality? Also: in my research, what I have noticed is that KC usually trades at a...

I took a bath on that wheat spread as well, but I'm putting in down to a lesson in why you need to understand the underlying dynamics of a market, and not just look at dates on a calendar. In a normal year, when supply and demand are more or less in balance, the may-sep spread will steadily...