Technical analysis and different future contracts

[easymon1]

Along with the time and hassle savings of just working the Dec (and Jul) vs Front month endless
rolling busy-ness for things like ZC and perhaps CL,
A quick look at the ZC Mar 15m chart next to the ZC Dec 15m chart points up something interesting.
The ZC Dec 15m chart looks much cleaner and easier to read imho.

Margins
ZC Mar
Initial 2812.50 USD
Maintenance 2250.00 USD

ZC Dec
Initial 2125.01 USD
Maintenance 1700.00 USD

 

[Overnight]

Thanks for the quick answers!
I was avoiding rolling over my trade because I thought that I'll be losing with each rollover some profits from the position - that's why I was looking at the later contracts as well. But yeah, they are, of course, priced differently...

You'd be losing or gaining whatever your unrealized PnL is when you "roll". You're simply closing one position and opening another. It is no more complicated than that.

 

[long]

This is exactly my plan.

RBOB and CT have both created in the current contract regarding my technicals a bullish signal. But I wanted to buy in CT rather the Jul contract which looks different and has no bullish signal yet. Regarding RBOB the later expiring contracts have a far higher price. So I probably stay on the sideline in this instrument.

As a commodity producer I use far out months to hedge my production. I’ve always looked at the further out months as being more influenced by commercial hedgers than the near by contracts. I’ve pretended that it gave me a little insight to the future but I’ve never really quantified it. The COT report the calendar premium/discount is what I use for the same purpose. When speculating I stick to the front month because the moves tend to be larger than in later months. Sometimes I’ll put on calendar spreads when TA for different months contradict each other.