What Do We Trade?

The positions that are posted each evening use the Tradestation symbols for the different commodity contracts we track and trade.

We basically trade the three most liquid markets in each of the 7 main sectors: Interest Rates, Currencies, Grains, Energy, Tropicals, Metals, and Equities.

Int Rates	Currency	Grains	Energy
US - 30yr bond	EC -Euro	C - Corn	CL - Crude
TY - 10yr bond	JY - Yen	W - Wheat	HO - Heat Oil
FV - 5yr bond	CD - Canada	S - Soybean	NG - Nat Gas
Tropicals	Precious Metal	Industrial/Building	Equities
KC - Coffee	GC - Gold	HG - Copper	ES - S&P 500
SB - Sugar	SI - Silver	LB - Lumber	NQ - Nasdaq
CT - Cotton			YM - Dow Industr.

When we run our analytics each evening, we use the continuous, back-adjusted contract in each market. So, for example, instead of looking at the December 2005 Copper contract (HGZ05), we look at @HG.P - Tradestation's symbol for the back-adjusted pit traded Copper contract.

This allows us to look at past price action in the front month (which is generally the most liquid - hence the most efficient in terms of price discovery) over whatever length of time we are interested in.

Of course, you cannot trade a continuous contract - they don't exist in the real world! When initiating a trade, we buy or sell the specific contract that has the most open interest (usually the front month) and we roll that position to the next month as soon as open interest in the following month exceeds the current month - and ALWAYS prior to first notification day (which is the first day you can be notified to TAKE DELIVERY of your commodity - nightmare scenario!)