5/16/2009

Hello

Well, since Jules and LT don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of a blogging hiatus I figured why should I? Does it seem odd to start a sentence with the word, well? Didn't Ronald Reagan always do that?

Oh great, one paragraph in and I all ready have to say, I digress.

James asked me how things were going and I mentioned that my crude oil well seems to have gone dry. The blue bars were scarce, now they are almost non existent. I found myself continually pushing for trades, breaking rules, not following the plan and getting whacked for it.

I had a chat with RR (those of you who were not regular readers will have no idea who I'm talking about) and he pushed me to look at different patterns with crude or some different products all together. The EIT keeps telling me I should swing trade and on and on the advice goes. :)

Although I listen to all I respect, as always, you must find your own way.

BEANS!!

Say what?

I was perusing the trade the markets web site looking at the free :) webinar menu and I saw a session on trading the grains. Not sure if I have ever mentioned this but I used to be a farmer. Yes a farmer, before I became a banker. Long story don't need to go there. Anyway the grains interested me, maybe because I know what they are, I understand what a bushel is, and I like the idea of controlling 5000 bushels of soybeans for a few seconds.

I started with corn as it has the most volume however it was not volatile enough. Moved to soybeans and liked what I saw. I'm still using the same system that I use for crude oil albeit with slightly different settings. I don't have many trades with it yet so I really don't know how things will go in the long run, but for now things are working nicely.

I still watch crude but find myself wanting to keep the powder dry for the soybean open.

Oh yes, the blog, I'm still officially on hiatus and will be until at least August. I coach baseball in May and June and then we are gone all of July for holidays. So maybe I'll get back to regular blogging in August.

Here are a few charts.

1 Minute Soybean Futures Charts


8 comments:

FX said...

I'm very pleased to see you blogging again, at least you didn't give up on it for good. :)

Jules said...

Hahahaha....!!! Funny as ever, Solfest!

Anonymous said...

Good to see you back, sad to hear you were once a farmer (here in the UK the farmers grow a magical crop called 'EU subsidy' which produces fantastic yields whatever the weather etc!).

Solfest said...

Good to hear from all of you again.

Yes LongandWrong agriculture is one messed up industry. Take a simple supply and demand industry, add government and kaboom. It’s disgusting.

It’s sad that capitalism is not left alone to work the way it is supposed to work, without the government picking winners and losers. Its funny listening to the talking heads saying capitalism doesn’t work because of the mess we're in now. Funny but sad. They don't understand the cruel truth that businesses that make bad decisions are supposed to go broke.

That’s right broke, bankrupt, deceased, like a wildebeest with a limp, and when they’re gone the herd is that much stronger.

Hey I'm supposed to be on hiatus, don't get me started.

Anonymous said...

There's clearly a gap in the market for a 'farming is f*****' blog :-)

Agree with what you say.

Perhaps my favourite example of the very strange 'free market' in agriculture (in UK) is that the tax-payer compensates the farmer for animals that die of certain diseases. So the poorest subsidise some of the richest and they lose the motivation to tackle disease.

I might ask for compensation on my last 3 EUR/JPY trades :-)

Solfest said...

You deserve compensation for your last EUR/JPY trades because you have the right to trade. Why if you didn't trade there would be no market for the EUR/JPY conversion. All trade between Europe and Japan would cease. The entire world would come to a stand still. Civilization as we know it would end.

YOU MUST BE PAID!!!!

Thank you.

Rocky Humbert said...

Welcome back Farmer Solfest -- with respect to Beans, Rocky's father always said:

In the Army, they eat their beans with Salami, and the beans are good.

In the Navy, they eat their beans with gravy, and the beans are good.

In the Marines, they eat their beans with margarine, and the beans are good.

(Just some inspirational quotes for a ex-crude trader....)

More about Rocky's dad can be found here: http://onehonestman.wordpress.com/faqs/

Solfest said...

Rocky, your definition of inspirational must be rather expansive. :)