Commitment of Traders No Longer Valid?

May 8, 2006 - The Commitment of Traders Report (COT) has been a mainstay of futures traders for decades. People like Larry Williams have created large volumes of analysis on how to use this public information to profit in futures trading.

Now comes a report that shows that the COT may no longer truly represent what market participants are doing and is therefore not as valid if not completely invalid as a analytical tool now. Click here for more details.

CME and Reuters Link Up To Offer More Derivatives

May 8 , 2006 - The CME is the dominant futures exchange but is completely overwhelmed by the volume in the cash market. Reuters is the dominant trading platform for the cash market. The combo of the two will give a jolt to both entities. This is, as the cliche says, a win-win for both. Click here for more details.

How To Deal With Losing Streaks

April 15, 2006 - Everybody goes through losing streaks. It's a fact that haunts every trader. But what should you do with them? Can they put your into financial ruin or psychologically break you? We've written a special article on the subject. Click here for more details.

More Refco History

January 11, 2006- More gory details on an amazing story.

The End of Floor Traders

January 11, 2006- There seems to be no issue that the trading floors filled with screaming traders will soon be a thing of the past. Here's an article about this passing into history.

History of Refco Regulatory Problems

January 5, 2006- Bloomberg has an interesting history of the problems that Refco has had with regulators going back to the 1960's, including the famous trading coup of Hillary Clinton.

Turns out that I had conversations twice with Phillip Bennett about buying Refco. The first time was in 1993 and was very serious. I was the CEO of Quantum Financial Services at the time and were aggressively expanding. Tommy Ditmar was the owner and CEO of the company at the time with Bennett as his CFO. I got the impression that Ditmar just wasn't interested in owning the company any more and just wanted to dump it.

We were very serious about our interest and did a lot of due diligence. Refco had only taken over Conti to become the biggest futures merchant a few years before. Our main contact was Bennett. He came across to me as British and professional, both attributes that were rare in the Chicago futures scene at the time.

Even then, Refco had a very large overseas operation but had yet to become the power in forex and other capital markets.

We ended up passing on the deal because the company wasn't a good fit for us more than the price was too high. If memory serves me correctly, the price was almost free but came with the assumption of the lot of liabilities.

Student Trading Contest

January 2, 2006- I dropped out of university because I couldn't see any courses that could help me become a successful trader. Accounting courses? What did that have to do with the bellies? MBA? Puhleeze, that helped you to become the vice-presidnt of a big company.

So, instead, I enrolled in the University of Hard Knocks.

Turns out that they now have futures trading contests that enable students to actually trade futures. Now this is a course I could have taken!

FREE! The Keys to Successful Futures Trading

January 2, 2006 - One of the most important issues of CTCR was our special issue on The Keys to Successful Futures Trading. We asked 19 futures gurus about what they felt were the keys to making money as a trader.

Frankly, a lot of the answers surprised me. For example, they wern't self-serving at all. They never tried to hype their own intelligence. They admitted to a lot os mistakes.

At the same time, a lot of their answers were Mom and apple pie.

The gurus that participated included:

• John Abrahamson
• Colin Alexander
• Jake Bernstein
• Craig Corcoran
• Bob Hafer
• Greg Meadors
• Dr. Hans Hannula
• Robert Jubb
• David Mefford
• Dennis Minogue
• Russell Sands
• Craig Solberg
• Stan Tamulevich
• Jerry Toepke
• Nick Van Nice
• Russ Wasendorf
• Larry Williams
• Norm Winski

Their approaches range from fundamentsl to technicals to astrology yet they often came back to the same underlying keys.

At the end, I wrote an analysis of their comments. We've been running excerpts from it in our weekly e-letter.

We've packaged this special report into an electronic e-book of 15 pages. Because it is so important for every trader, we are giving it away for free! Yes, for FREE!

All you have to do to get a copy is to ask for it! Just click here and put Keys in the subject or body and we will email you a copy. You will also receive a free subscription to the CTCR email letter.

You owe it to yourself to read this important issue!

Trading With Just a Little Money

January 2, 2006- One of the critical problems with trading is not having enough money. How are we to learn how to trade without starting with a bankroll of $100,000?

We have recently been giving away a classic back issue of CTCR which dealt this this issue: Click here to request your free copy! You will also receive a free subscription to the CTCR email letter.

Basically, most traders start with a small bankroll and most people thinking of investing in futures have small bankrolls. What do we mean by small? Probably anything less than $25,000.

I've done some research in the past and found that the chances of success increase dramatically with the size of the bankroll as you move from $0 to $100,000. The reason is that a small bankroll cannot diversify and that people nearly always take too much risk. With $10,000, most people will risk, for argument's sake, $1,000 on one trade. That means you are wiped out if you have a net loss of ten trades (with certain assumptions).

The article was written so that traders could have a more diversified portfolio and still trade futures. The problem is that two of the methods, options and spreads, require more work and knowledge to implement.
Trading options and spreads are much more complex than trading simple futures. In effect, you have to add an additional level of analysis before you can make a trade. Typically, you need to understand the payoff structure of options as well as implied volatility before you want to put on an options trade.

In spreads, you need to probably understand the difference in the fundamental demand for one futures contract compared to the demand for another one. Few traders use fundamentals these days so it is unlikely that they will have a different opinion on two different expirations of the same commodity. It's possible to use just technical analysis to trade inter-commodity spreads. In fact, I think it is an excellent idea since some of these spreads have huge moves and trend better than the two separate commodities.

Another idea comes from legendary newsletter writer Bruce Gould:

"I would pick one segment of the market, either livestock, or grains, or metals, or interest rate futures, or whatever, and I would just concentrate on that segment and forget the others. There is just too much going on, and the stuff overwhelms you. I would then take that one group, let's say the meats, and I would develop myself into a good meat trader. If you follow hogs, bellies, cattle and feeders, or if you follow wheat, corn, oats, soybeans, meal and oil, you'll see plenty of tradeable patterns. Those few markets will soon show you everything you will ever come across. I suggest you try to be successful within one group before you watch all the markets at once. WHen you're watching everything, you're always disgusted or panicking because you're not in whatever's moving. Then you jump into that, and it immediately goes against you. Before long, you have no capital left."

Why don't you write us with your ideas? And don't forget to request the FREE back issue on How To Trade With Little Money.

Special Carl Futia Issue!

May 20 , 2005 - This was our most popular issue ever in terms of actual sales when it was first published in 1990. The reason was the cover interview. Carl Futia achieved the dream so many traders aspire to. After many years of going down the same false trails so many of us have walked, Carl was able to reach the point where he earns his living from his personal trading. His ideas about trading are, in many respects, directly contrary to the conventional wisdom.

Read Carl's pointed criticism of the popular trading approaches. He even has some harsh words for traditional trend followers and computerized technical analysis. Then find out exactly how he trades.

There is more than enough detail so that you can make his approach your own if you choose. Carl's ideas will fascinate and challenge you.

Additional material: Profile of Andrew Cardwell, the best expert on RSI in the world.

Order this fascinating issue now!