Weekly Newsletter: Understanding Open Interest, May Wheat Outlook and Automated System of the Week
Posted By:- Ilan Levy-Mayer Vice President, Cannon Trading Futures Blog
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Cannon Futures Weekly Letter Issue # 1185
In this issue:
- Important Notices – Change Your Clocks!
- Trading Resource of the Week – Trade Alerts Via Email/Text
- Hot Market of the Week – May Wheat
- Broker’s Trading System of the Week – MidCap SP Swing System
- Trading Levels for Next Week
- Trading Reports for Next Week
Important Notices –
- FED Blackout Period Begins Sat. 9th, lasts for 9 business days
- A smattering of earnings. Mostly Microcap to Midcap: Adobe Reports
- Tuesday and Thursday Data: CPI, Jobless claim , Retail sales and PPI
- Begin Trading June indices if you haven’t already: M = June
- Spring your Clocks forward for those countries that subscribe to Daylight Savings.
Trading Resource of the Week : Understanding Open Interest by CMEgroup.com
Understanding Open Interest
Open interest is the total number of futures contracts held by market participants at the end of the trading day. It is used as an indicator to determine market sentiment and the strength behind price trends.
Unlike the total issued shares of a company, which typically remain constant, the number of outstanding futures contracts varies from day to day.
Open interest is calculated by adding all the contracts from opened trades and subtracting the contracts when a trade is closed.
For example, Sharon, Cynthia and Kurt are trading the same futures contract. If Sharon buys one contract to enter a long trade, open interest increases by one. Cynthia also goes long and buys six contracts, thereby increasing open interest to seven. If Kurt decides to short the market and sells three contracts, open interest again increases to 10.
Open interest would remain at 10 until the traders exit their positions, at which point open interest declines. For example, open interest declines to nine when Sharon sells one contract. When Kurt decides to exit his position, he buys back his three contracts and brings open interest down to six. At this point, until Cynthia decides to sell her six contracts, open interest will remain constant at six.
Open interest and volume are related concepts, one key difference is that volume counts all contracts that have been traded, while open interest is a total of contracts that remain open in the market.
Traders can think of open interest as the cash flowing to the market. As open interest increases, more money is moving into the futures contract and as open interest declines money is moving out of the futures contract.
CME Group products with the largest open interest include Eurodollars, Treasuries and stock index futures.
Open Interest Analysis
Analysts typically use open interest to confirm the strength of a trend. Increasing open interest is typically a confirmation of the trend whereas decreasing open interest can be a signal that the trend is losing strength.
The idea is that traders are supporting the trend by entering the market that increases the open interest. As traders lose faith in the trend they exit the market and open interest declines.
Open interest data is published at the end of each day. Additionally, every Friday afternoon, the CFTC publishes a report called the Commitment of Traders.
This report details open interest from different classes of market participants and whether they are holding a long or short position. This breakdown offers valuable insights into what producers, merchants, processors, users, swap dealers and money managers are doing in the market for a futures contract.
Open interest is one variable that many futures traders use in their analysis of the markets used in conjunction with other analysis to support trade decisions. Large changes in open interest can be an indicator when certain participants are entering or leaving the market and may give clues to market direction.
- Hot Market of the Week – May Wheat
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.
May Wheat
May wheat in Chicago broke down into a new contract low yesterday where the chart satisfied its third downside PriceCount objective. It would be normal to get a near term reaction from this level in the form of a consolidation or corrective trade, at least. At this point, IF you can sustain further weakness, we are left with the low percentage fourth objective to aim for around $4.20.
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.
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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.
PRODUCT
MidCap SP
SYSTEM TYPE
Swing
COST
USD 110 / monthly
Recommended Cannon Trading Starting Capital
$50,000
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.
Daily Levels for March 11th 2024
Trading Reports for Next Week
First Notice (FN), Last trading (LT) Days for the Week:
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* 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.
