Looking at LS Crude Oil and its opportunities with calendar spreads

Introduction

As you know, the oil futures are on the move. Everything indicates that the LS Crude oil is heading to 80 according to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. I believe that it’s possible to reach 80 before 2019 considering the current price and its momentum. It´s an 11% upside from the current price. The LS Crude Oil Oct18 started the year at 58.58$ and yesterday, it closed at 72.27$.

LS Crude Oil Oct18

    LS Crude Oil Nov 18, daily, source: TradingView

This is the perfect chart to explain how this commodity has performed this year. It represents 24.39% up in the year. After the last OPEC meeting seems that has more upside potential because they didn’t agree on any increase in the oil production.

The Spreads

    LS Crude Oil Dec18-Jan19 Spread, daily, source: TradingView

Probably this is the best spread for new traders or even for experienced traders because they will have a lot of opportunities with limited risk. The spread has been ranging between 0 and 0.80 the most part of the time.  You can see that each time that it opened above this level was a clear sell signal.

   LS Crude Oil Dec18-Mar19 spread, daily, source: TradingView

We can see a bigger range in the 3-month spread as it was expected. I´ve never been involved with energy products but looking at the chart. I would consider buying below 0.60 and selling above 1.80. This is an easy conclusion, however, trading this spread is not that simple.  

     LS Crude Oil Dec18-Jun19 spread, daily, source: TradingView

To be honest, this spread seems an outright. When the front contract falls, the spread falls really aggressively at least in the first 7 months of the year. Both outrights have been converging in the last 2 month.

Conclusion

As I said, I haven´t been involved with energy products and this is why this post is not as big as the other ones. It´s a great product and there are so many ways of trading it. I think the Oct contract will keep going up. I’m not sure about the movement of the spreads because the back of the curve is converging with the front (as we saw in the 3-month and 6-month spread). Probably the producers are buying futures because they expect higher prices of this commodity in the future. I hope you like.

Have a good trading!!

FGBM vs FGBL

Introduction

I love macroeconomics, this is why I have some preference for the interest rate derivatives. If we check the main European fixed income futures, we need to have a look at the Eurex exchange. One of my favourites futures is the FGBL (bund future). However, it’s difficult to trade for individuals with small accounts because it’s easy to get stopped out. If the 10-year bund future is to volatile for you, I would recommend having a look at the FGBM (5-year bond future known as bobl) It has the same tick value as the FGBL and it´s less volatile. And if you are starting, I would definitely go for the FGBS (2 German bond future called Schatz).

Can we trade these products only looking at the macroeconomic indicators?

Well, I believe that you can, it depends on the size of your account, the trade size, the strategy (risk management, money management) …

If you have a big balance, you can trade according to the macroeconomic data as far as you trade a small size and you look for the medium term or long term. The problem here is that you need to create your own indicator that shows you the health of the economy. In the current environment, I find this challenging because some assets are influenced by the central banks' decisions and political uncertainty (it’s very difficult to measure these factors and include them in a model). I highly recommend to set up a stop if you are going to trade like this.

    FXandFixedIncomeTrading logo, own elaboration

What are the alternatives of trading trends?

If you don’t like to trade trends you should be looking for market neutral strategies.  This kind of strategies are used by hedge funds. It basically consists of hedging. It seeks to avoid the market risk. The way to apply this strategy with futures is with intra-product spreads or inter-product spreads.

FGBM-FGBL Spread

I’ve been looking for a trading strategy like this for a while. I decided to spread the FGBM and the FGBL at the ratio of 3 to 1. I have checked only the charts but they look good to me.

     FGBM-FGBL Dec18, daily, source: TradingView

As you can see it has been moving in range since the middle of June. The range of the spread has been 160 ticks (234.60 and 233) while the bund range has been 291 ticks. I wouldn’t recommend holding overnight positions because these futures can open with a gap.

Conclusion

Sometimes is worth to consider market neutral strategies. Their main advantages are: there are multiple of entries, they are less risky than the outrights, you can consider as an alternative strategy if there is a lot of uncertainty in the market.  Obviously, the ratio 3 to 1 used in the example is random. I could have chosen a different one. Ideally, we should compare the DV01 of these futures and get the ratio from there. On the other hand, you can consider the different volatilities of the products involved or the correlation to get the spread ratio. Also, you should think about the trading commisions and the margins because it’s not the same to trade a 1 to 1 spread than 100 to 200. Having in mind all of these factors is not easy and requires a lot of work. Sadly, after testing the system or the strategy you can be disappointed with the results. Don´t give up and keep trying to improve it.

Have a good trading!!

Disclaimer

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions that shouldn't be used as a trading advice. Trading carries considerable risk due to the high leverage involved