Saturday, September 06, 2008

My Current Commodity Futures Positions - 9/7/08

Now THAT'S the way you trade!

Two solid weeks in a row - I'm feeling good about things, back in control, following trends like I should be.

A review of my trades from the week that was:
  • Closed out my Coffee long position - I closed this out on Thursday just north of the 143 mark, because - well - coffee just didn't feel right. I bought in anticipating a possible breakout - didn't get it - and figured best to close out my position. Much to my immediate chagrin, coffee rallied up above 146 soon after I closed the position. But was down 4.10 yesterday. Coffee is so volatile it's unbelievable. This is truly a "close your eyes and buy" bull market, and I just don't have the stomach or capital for this right now.
  • Also closed out my Silver long position - Really, I had to come to grips with the fact that I didn't time the bottom properly, that I was dumb for trying, and that I should wait for an uptrend before having a long position in Silver.
  • Went long the Japanese Yen -As we discussed earlier in the week, the Yen has held up remarkably well in the face of this dollar rally. We finally got the breakout to the upside I was looking for on Thursday.

Other existing positions I've got:
  • Short the British Pound - This trade continues to look good - the British Pound has been down basically every single day against the dollar for at least the last month. I'm happy that I closed my eyes and added another short contract last week.

My wish list (waiting for an uptrend):
  • Sugar
  • Cotton
  • Coffee
  • Swiss Franc
  • Silver

Open Positions
Date Position Qty Month/Yr Contract Entry Price Last Price Profit/Loss
08/29/08 Short 1 SEP 08 British Pound 1.8190 1.7654 $3,350.00
08/12/08 Short 1 SEP 08 British Pound 1.9042 1.7654 $8,675.00
09/04/08 Long 1 DEC 08 Japanese Yen 0.9340 0.9339 ($12.50)
Net Profit/Loss On Open Positions: $12,012.50

Account Balances
Current Cash Balance $50,069.73
Open Trade Equity $12,012.50
Total Equity $62,082.23
Long Option Value $0.00
Short Option Value $0.00
Net Liquidating Value $62,082.23

Cashed out: $18,000.00
Total value: $80,082.23

Weekly return: 7.4%
YTD return: 5.0%

***"Cash out" mostly means taxes, but lately I've also been using it to pay down my credit cards a bit. Why credit card debt? I'm financing a startup and trying to outpace my CC interest rate in the futures markets - kids, don't try this at home.

3 comments:

Moyo Mamora said...

hey Brett...What are your thoughts, I see the currencies that were falling this past couple of weeks reacting differently on the news of the Freddie Fannie bailout?

Brett Owens said...

Yeah, and notably the Swiss Franc and Yen are down, while the S&P is up - does that mean traders are rewinding their carry trades back up.

None of this makes any sense to me - I don't see how the Freddie/Fannie thing is news, it's been in the cards all along.

Moyo Mamora said...

Doesn't make sense to me....things are looking really crazy now. Like you said, one would think the Fannie/Freddie news has been discounted in the market, besides I dont see how that's good news for the market to gap up like it did? They are simply telling us that "yeah, Freddie and Fannie are screwed bad, and we'll be digging in to your pockets to take money you dont have to fix this issue"
Well again maybe it's me....i posted a discussion on this in the forum under indicies, i'll like to hear more thots, i'm pretty pissed on all that is going on now

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