Only 3 days of trading left in the first trading week of 2024.
These 3 days are PACKED with reports and I suspect much different trading behavior than we saw the last trading week of 2023.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
Wishing ALL of you a happy, healthy and successful New Year!
The Trader’s Prayer
May I never be facing north when the markets headed south, and may locked limit always be on my side. 🤜🏼
May the money left on the table be someone else’s and may my pockets be deeper than the correction.
✋ May I always be 5 minutes ahead of the market, And may my order have a clear path to the pit (electronic exchange now days….).
✋ And if this one is a winner, I swear I quit!
Make 2024 Your Best Trading Year Yet – Walk before you run
By Cannon Trading staff
The image of a successful futures trader is that of a lone wolf surveying the landscape looking for an opportunity to attack and seize quick and substantial profits. We all know about the potential for making a fortune in the futures markets. Yet, few do so. Why is that? What are some of the common pitfalls that prevent this dream from becoming a reality for most futures traders?
One of the most prevalent misconceptions for inexperienced futures traders is that they believe themselves to be smarter than the rest of the commodities market participants. They underestimate the qualifications and abilities of the rest of the futures markets professionals. This business of commodities trading is dominated by very dedicated, resourceful professionals who have invested lots of time and assets into their pursuit of trading futures profits. Competing against these seasoned professionals is not impossible but going at it alone, especially initially, is usually not the most prudent course of action for new futures traders.
When we were children, we learned to walk before we learned to run. This is true for most of our life experiences. We played t-ball before we played baseball. We took lessons from Arthur Murray before we entered dance competitions. We watched cooking shows or read cookbooks before we attempted to deep fry our first turkey. So, why do so many novice futures traders think that they should enter into the world of futures trading without the support of an experienced futures broker? Why, armed with their computers and quote systems do they think that they are equipped to go it alone and be successful? It isn’t logical. It goes counter to our collective life experiences.
If your goal is to trade futures/commodities independently, why not do so after acquiring valuable experience and insight by working with a seasoned professional futures broker? Someone who is already fully engaged in the futures markets. Why not begin by using a mentor, a teacher, an advisor who can supply ideas, guidelines, disciplines, and insights that the novice trader could not otherwise be exposed to? We all learned to drive with the help of an instructor, why not approach the commodities markets in a similar fashion? Your hard-earned capital is at stake. Getting an education can be a very expensive process, especially in the futures trading business. Why not take advantage of the help offered by an experienced professional? Help like this can shorten a new futures trader’s learning curve and reduce the cost of his or her tuition for this education.
It is true that not all commodities brokers are quality teachers or mentors. The futures trader must choose his or her mentor carefully….just as one does when choosing a lawyer, doctor, or accountant. The futures brokers at Cannon Trading as a group are among the finest professionals that you will find anywhere in the futures trading world. The management at Cannon Trading has chosen these brokers prudently and after much scrutiny. This is evidenced by the impressive record of professional business conduct for the past 30 years by Cannon’s brokers. This record can be reviewed by going to www.nfa.futures.org ( the National Futures Association) website and comparing Cannon Trading versus other futures brokerage firms. You will be impressed.
Professional athletes use sports psychologists. Boxers use corner men. Graduate students study under the guidance of their professors. Professional singers utilize vocal coaches. Shouldn’t you as a futures trader avail yourself of the same sort of support that successful people in all of these endeavors use?
Hot market of the week is provided by QT Market Center, A swiss army knife charting package that’s not just for Hedgers, Cooperatives and Farmers alike but also for Spread traders, Swing traders and shorter time frame application for intraday traders with a unique proprietary indicator that can be applied to your specific trading needs.
March resumed its slide into new lows. At this point, a third PriceCount objective of 98.93 would coincide with summer lows.
PriceCounts – Not about where we’ve been , but where we might be going next!
The PriceCount study is a tool that can help to project the distance of a move in price. The counts are not intended to be an ‘exact’ science but rather offer a target area for the four objectives which are based off the first leg of a move with each subsequent count having a smaller percentage of being achieved. It is normal for the chart to react by correcting or consolidating at an objective and then either resuming its move or reversing trend. Best utilized in conjunction with other technical tools, PriceCounts offer one more way to analyze charts and help to manage your positions and risk. Learn more at www.qtchartoftheday.com
Trading in futures, options, securities, derivatives or OTC products entails significant risks which must be understood prior to trading and may not be appropriate for all investors. Past performance of actual trades or strategies is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Broker’s Trading System of the Week
With algorithmic trading systems becoming more prevalent in portfolio diversification, the following system has been selected as the broker’s choice for this month.
The performance shown above is hypothetical in that the chart represents returns in a model account. The model account rises or falls by the average single contract profit and loss achieved by clients trading actual money pursuant to the listed system’s trading signals on the appropriate dates (client fills), or if no actual client profit or loss available – by the hypothetical single contract profit and loss of trades generated by the system’s trading signals on that day in real time (real‐time) less slippage, or if no real time profit or loss available – by the hypothetical single contract profit and loss of trades generated by running the system logic backwards on back adjusted data. Please read full disclaimer HERE.
Questions about the markets? trading? platforms? technology? trading systems? Get answers with a complimentary, confidential consultation with a Cannon Trading Company series 3 broker.
Would you like to receive daily support & resistance levels?
First Notice (FN), Last trading (LT) Days for the Week: www.mrci.com
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts herein contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgment in trading.
Good Trading!
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time.
Volume has been very low this week and I don’t see much difference tomorrow but one can never tell….See modified hours below.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
As has been the case in prior years, this week we’re seeing reduced daily trade volume across the futures markets. Adding to this environment, Last Trading Day for Jan. ’24 Natural gas is tomorrow the 27th, and both First Notice Day for January ‘24 CBOT soy complex futures and Last Trading Day for January ‘24 RBOB gasoline and ULSD Heating oil is this Friday the 29th.
Both natural gas and crude oil numbers are out tomorrow due to the short trading week.
Just what is a Troy ounce, anyway? For those trading precious metals futures like gold, silver, platinum and palladium, it’s the unit of weight by which those physical products are measured.
Turns out, a small town about 110 miles southeast of Paris and situated within the Champagne wine region was major intersection for parts of the Roman-era trade highways and then an important international trading hub during the Middle Ages (± 500 AD to 1500). The town’s name: Troyes (pronounced: troy). Right around the 12th and 13th centuries – call it the middle of the Middle Ages – an annual cycle of 2- to 3-week trade fairs flourished in the region and it was likely then that the unit of weight was standardized and first used. It essentially beat out other systems of weight developed in other parts of Europe and eventually it was made the official weight for gold and silver by England in 1824, called the British Imperial system. Four years later, the United States adopted it as an official weight standard for United States coinage. And today, your precious metals are still measured using this system.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
Low trading volume today in stock index futures and financials, the day after Christmas.
On the flip side, above average volume in grains and energies.
Understand how the holiday season and sometimes the lower volume affects the specific markets you are trading.
I suspect lower than normal volume the rest of the week with perhaps Friday being the last trading day of the year as an exception.
Video: Projecting possible targets when trading futures
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
The U.S. economy is looking like it’s approaching yet another historical period.
By Mark O’Brien, Senior Broker
After months of seeing the Federal Reserve raise interest rates to their current 5.25% – 5.50%, target range, traders, economists, investors, etc. are looking at this year and anticipating the first cut in rates since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
Perhaps more importantly, there is the feeling that these interest rate cuts – once they are put in place – will be a policy shift possibly different than any other time in the history of Fed rate decisions. Instead of cutting rates because of an imminent risk of recession, or the need to protect against one, the Fed. will be lower borrowing costs as an accommodation – almost a reward of sorts – for moderated inflation readings, growth that has slowed without much adverse effect on the country’s employment situation (satisfying one of their two mandates) and is now sliding toward the Fed.’s long-standing target of 2%.
Ruling nothing out, Fed. Chair Jerome cautioned in his press conference last week that the U.S. economy can behave in unexpected ways and the central bank stands ready to resume a restrictive posture should economic conditions warrant. Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee seconded that: ” “Progress continues, though we still have a way to go,” Goolsbee said in an interview last week.
Clearly, traders in stocks and stock index futures feared little in that caveat – and haven’t for the last nine weeks. The Dow Jones and Nasdaq futures moved to record a new all-time closing high. Following another session in the green on Tuesday, the S&P 500 index is only a few dozen points away from its own milestone. Roughly another move up of 0.6% can bring it to that peak. Stay tuned for the last days of 2023 to see if the Santa rally charges ahead.
Notably, the biggest contributors to the S&P 500’s banner year have been the usual suspects, currently dubbed the Magnificent Seven: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta Platforms. Collectively, these companies’ stock prices have jumped 75% in 2023, leaving the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 in their dust. Those have risen a more modest 12%, while the index as a whole is up 23%. The Magnificent Seven stocks have swelled to represent about 30% of the S&P 500’s market value, according to Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research. That is approaching the highest-ever share for any seven stocks.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
Video: Projecting possible targets when trading futures
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
The December 18th week is the second to last before the week between Christmas and New Years.
It may be hard to find much to get markets excited about now that the final FOMC meeting of 2023 is out of the way.
Confidence is high that the Fed is done raising rates in this cycle, which makes the economic outlook more certain and one which includes rate cuts sooner or later. Most of the data from this point forward is probably backward looking, This weeks GDP is the final iteration from the BEA Bureau of Economic Analysis for Q3 after a knock the barn door off 2nd revision last month increase of 5.2 percent. We will see early Thursday morning if the second iteration was correct.
Because the housing numbers this week are also backward looking, the data will be reflective of a time period where the mortgage rates had been at their highest levels in over 25 years. Mortgage rates have come down a few shades since the late summer and fall peaks of over 7 1/2%. As of this writing, the 30-year fixed can be had for under 7 through some outlets for the most credit worthy home buyers.
Housing starts, Existing home sales and New home sales, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The probability of a .25 point fed funds ease for the Fed’s March meeting is currently @ 63.4 % per the CME’s Fedwatch tool. The FOMC has a January meeting scheduled, but no February event.
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time when it comes to Futures Trading.
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts here in contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgement in trading.
Hot market of the week is provided by QT Market Center, A swiss army knife charting package that’s not just for Hedgers, Cooperatives and Farmers alike but also for Spread traders, Swing traders and shorter time frame application for intraday traders with a unique proprietary indicator that can be applied to your specific trading needs.
March Copper completed its first upside PriceCount objective early this month and corrected. Now, the chart is attempting to resume its rally where new sustained highs would project a run to the second count in the 4.03 area, consistent with a challenge of the September high.
PriceCounts – Not about where we’ve been , but where we might be going next!
The PriceCount study is a tool that can help to project the distance of a move in price. The counts are not intended to be an ‘exact’ science but rather offer a target area for the four objectives which are based off the first leg of a move with each subsequent count having a smaller percentage of being achieved. It is normal for the chart to react by correcting or consolidating at an objective and then either resuming its move or reversing trend. Best utilized in conjunction with other technical tools, PriceCounts offer one more way to analyze charts and help to manage your positions and risk. Learn more at www.qtchartoftheday.com
Trading in futures, options, securities, derivatives or OTC products entails significant risks which must be understood prior to trading and may not be appropriate for all investors. Past performance of actual trades or strategies is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Broker’s Trading System of the Week
With algorithmic trading systems becoming more prevalent in portfolio diversification, the following system has been selected as the broker’s choice for this month.
The performance shown above is hypothetical in that the chart represents returns in a model account. The model account rises or falls by the average single contract profit and loss achieved by clients trading actual money pursuant to the listed system’s trading signals on the appropriate dates (client fills), or if no actual client profit or loss available – by the hypothetical single contract profit and loss of trades generated by the system’s trading signals on that day in real time (real‐time) less slippage, or if no real time profit or loss available – by the hypothetical single contract profit and loss of trades generated by running the system logic backwards on back adjusted data. Please read full disclaimer HERE.
Questions about the markets? trading? platforms? technology? trading systems? Get answers with a complimentary, confidential consultation with a Cannon Trading Company series 3 broker.
Would you like to receive daily support & resistance levels?
First Notice (FN), Last trading (LT) Days for the Week: www.mrci.com
This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell, but a current market view provided by Cannon Trading Inc. Any statement of facts herein contained are derived from sources believed to be reliable but are not guaranteed as to accuracy, nor they purport to be complete. No responsibility is assumed with respect to any such statement or with respect to any expression of opinion herein contained. Readers are urged to exercise their own judgment in trading.
Good Trading!
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time.
RISK DISCLOSURE: Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. The risk of loss in futures trading can be substantial, carefully consider the inherent risks of such an investment in light of your financial condition.
