Fully agree with everything you said except I never claimed or postulated front contract trading. A claim has been made that there is predictive value in the shape of the curve and hence points on the curve and that is simply not true. Anyone with better than market models and superior knowledge of the inputs will hence trade against the market agreed points. That was not contentious. What was disagreeable here was the claim that the curve itself provides predictive value. And I simply disagreed and laid out my rational. Also the role of the large commodity trading houses was also never debated nor disagreed on.
Crude is screwed, man.
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As I read this thread, "predictive value" is your own prose - not Mav's. Mav speaks of the necessity of the forward curve strictly from the standpoint of a VALUATION component - which is a legitimate fact and you mistakenly construe as predictive.
The best example I can give you that illustrates Mav's point would be the Yyuuggee market in OTC energy strips - especially Nat Gas, Diesel, Jet, and Crude. I can absofuckinglutely guarantee you that ICAP's Carolina desk quote for a two year strip on Crude Oil will differ markedly from the prompt month less bid/ask Spread and Basis components. That Louis Dreyfus trader that ICAP has on the other line Making your market will have the forward curve regression plots up on his Bloomberg as well as the Platt's data.
You are mistaken on this one, bone. Post #16 was when he came up with the ludicrous idea that the forward curve provides predictive value, way before I ever joined the thread. In fact it was the main if not only reason i jumped on.
Your other point I am not sure where you are going with there. Trying to impress? I am not impressed. I disagreed with a false statement and in detail laid out why. Any basic textbook supports my case.
Your other point I am not sure where you are going with there. Trying to impress? I am not impressed. I disagreed with a false statement and in detail laid out why. Any basic textbook supports my case.
It's a hell of a lot easier to model the forward curve for speculative purposes using convexity spreads as compared to flat price directional bets on the spot cash or prompt futures contract in more than a few professional trader's opinions. Look at the surviving prop firms - most of the big traders are Spread traders. And every desk trader I've ever met is some permutation of a Spread trader for all practical purposes. Grammatical semantics aside, the forward curve in commodities and especially energy is a huge deal. And it is a fact that those forward curve order flows do indeed influence the prompt price - both due to hedging and curve convexity changes.
PS Marc Rich pardon was despite then deputy attorney general Eric Holder's objections...
Thanks for that important fact, CliffY Clavin.
You seem to not know the difference between "prediction" and "value". I have no idea why. The curve in energy is instructive on whether its optimal to sell into the spot market or sell forward. The curve is absolutely a representation of the economics of storage. It's a real price. This implied price of storage reflects the supply and demand imbalance in the market and yes, it's almost exclusively what energy firms model, NOT PRICE. Of course you laid the claim that energy houses like Vitol are just BSDs that profit on wild swings in the market. You made the claim that inventories don't matter. You then ranted for hours about the no arbitrage rule which ONLY holds under equilibrium. And it's ONLY available to holders of physical assets which is EXACTLY how firms like Vitol make their money and it's WHY they have made money for 50 years straight because surely if they were just punting on direction, they would have to get "unlucky" every now and then.
This is an interesting comment. I once asked the CME "crude folks" about which months drive which months. For example, does a lot of buying in a contract month 6 months out drive up the price of the spot month? Vice-versa?
The rep said this, basically..."The spot month drives the movement of the forward month, in general." After reviewing all the posts in this thread about predictive values and many other complicated ways the prices can move, I myself cannot conclude that the price of a forward month can truly impact the price of a spot month or vice-versa, and that the CME rep was speaking in very simplistic terms.
This is a deep complicated concept that has been brought up in the thread though, and I find it so fascinating. Wish I had 20 more years to study it. It's just such a cool thingy.
You model the forward curve to trade the forward curve, not the front month. The front month is driven by the delivery process into Cushing. There are many factors one could look at to try to understand it but it's largely noise.