- Are Any Grains Worth Buying At These Prices?
- US Government Continues to Print Money at Breathtaking Pace
- Food Supply Problem More Acute Than Ever
- Jim Rogers: Dollar Will Be Devalued; Buy Commodities
- Casey Research: Get Ready for the Commodity Comeback
A review of my futures trades from the previous week:
- Went long cotton. Cotton futures are the most attractive investment opportunity I see today. They are actually trading below the prices they were at when the entire bull market in commodities began.
Other existing positions I've got:
- Short the British Pound - Last time I shorted the British Pound, it turned out to be a quite profitable trade. I plan to hold this position until the GBP hits a 15-day high against the US dollar.
My wish list...and it looks like these commodities are at least starting to form a bottom, at last:
- Sugar
- Coffee
- Natural Gas
- Silver
Open positions
| Date | Position | Qty | Month/Yr | Contract | Entry Price | Last Price | Profit/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/10/08 | Short | 1 | DEC 08 | British Pound | 1.6870 | 1.5371 | $9,368.75 |
| 11/26/08 | Long | 1 | MAR 09 | Cotton | 46.42 | 48.00 | $790.00 |
| Net Profit/Loss On Open Positions | $10,158.75 | ||||||
Account Balances
| Current Cash Balance | $39,577.74 |
| Open Trade Equity | $10,158.75 |
| Total Equity | $49,736.49 |
| Long Option Value | $0.00 |
| Short Option Value | $0.00 |
| Net Liquidating Value | $49,736.49 |
Cashed out: $20,000.00
Total value: $69,736.49
Weekly return: -4.1%
YTD return: -9.4%
***"Cash out" mostly means taxes, but lately I've also been using it for living expenses, and also to finance a cool new time management software startup that is starting to lift off.
Hi Brett,
ReplyDeleteon what do you base your entries and exits? Do you use programmed algorithms or just intuition, or both? Have a profitable speculation.
Hi, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI typically enter long positions on 20-day highs, and exit on 15-day lows. With the reverse guidelines for short positions.
Pretty simple, but it'd worked pretty well for me, and I get in the most trouble when I ignore these simple rules.
Here's a previous post I wrote about entries and exits after reading Winner Take All: http://commoditybullmarket.blogspot.com/2007/12/weekly-positions-update-121607.html
Brett:
ReplyDeleteHow much leverage is required when trading currency positions? Also, have you traded currencies that are not Dollar based? For example, shorting a british pound against a Norwegian krone?
John, I usually try to have $15-20K of cash for every currency contract, at a minimum.
ReplyDeleteI believe you can get > 10:1 leverage with currency contracts, so it's easy to leverage too high - which I've personally done.
Have only traded $-based contracts personally.