Mr. Ruggiero Jr.,
I just finished reading your article in October's issue of "Futures" magazine and I can see why farmers are hardened, bald and basically pissed off.
Farmers, as a whole, have to be one of the most well rounded but lied to or misled groups on our planet. I was raised on a farm and was basically an indentured servant for most of my childhood and totally lost sight of the farmers greatness till I became an adult. A farmer must be a horticulturist, technician, geologist, meteorologist, pharmacist, veterinarian, engineer, mechanic, chemist and versed in animal husbandry, just to name a few traits.
Over the years, good farmers, have become pretty astute at maximizing the yield in their fields and peaking the quality of their livestock but the one single area they are lacking is the area of Marketing or "how to maximize the profit on their hard work".
I know you had no intention of misleading "my people" and absolutely know that you have no malice in your heart but farmers need to be given something other than an article overflowing with contradictions and filled with equations that are useless and confusing to overworked "land technicians & engineers". By the time a farmer has time to work through your caculations the move has, as you say, "disappeared".
You begin by saying, " . . . if a seasonal as well regarded as corn can shift, no seasonal is safe . . . ". I take this as saying that there is no consistency in the seasonality of grains. I was intrigued.
Then you start touting you (MEM) Maximum Entropy Method, a type of regressive filter for cycle analysis. Cycles? There isn't anything about cycles that are consistent. You even say, "In the classic use of MEM as little data as possible is used to isolate the cycle so they can be traded before they disappear". You then add that, " a 15-day cycle MAY last 45 trading days". THEN you say that, "Markets are composed of multiple cycles of different amplitudes and phases, which make up the the waveform. This is the reason that it is not easy to use cycle analysis for short- and intermediate-term trading". Isn't a 15-day cycle short or intermediate term? My head is starting to ache and I'm familiar with the Ag Markets.
You then state late in the article that, "strong cycles only exist for a short time" and then end with, "Research like seasonal composites can help make sure that your trading account balance is not just a fading memory like the old big books of seasonals, which market evolution has turned into door stops".
After reading this article I can see farmers using their trading account for therapy or anger management reimbursement.
If you need help relating in this environment, schedule a trip to an agricultural area and rub elbows with the people that feed you on a regular basis. You will immediately push to create articles that are based in a simpler method of reading price direction other than totally inconsistent seasonals or cycles.
I'm really not trying to agitate you. I know you had the best of intentions when writing this article but farmers as well as other Ag investors need simple consistent techniques to read price direction not contradictions and complex calculations that prove their own inconsistency.
